“Turn back to me with all your heart, fasting weeping mourning”. The words of the prophet Joel from today’s opening reading set the scene for today’s solemn opening of Lent.
We hear this call to repentance and conversion – to allow our hearts to be broken – and we are marked physically with the sign of our own mortality in ash on our foreheads. We remember we are dust and to dust we will return.
There seems an initial tension here between the solemnity and sorrow of this Lenten invitation and the joyful invitation from Pope Francis last Christmas to enter into this Jubilee year as pilgrims of hope.
But that tension dissolves when we recognise that as Christians we are called to be realists, realists about our world and realists about ourselves, drawing our deep hope from the love of God revealed in Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen one.
His journey through Galilee and Judaea 2000 years ago begins in a genuine joy and companionship, bringing real healing and reconciliation. Yet that journey also leads him through the earthly realities of injustice, torture and death into the ultimate reality of the new creation.
We his followers are called to be realists, to be realists about the joy and goodness of our world and to be realists about the darkness and the cruelty that we find there as well – and sometimes that we have a part in.
Our Christian hope is rooted in our experience that as the kaleidoscope of the world twists and turns through time, the light of the resurrection shines through to give us strength even in the darkest moments.
For Christians there is an ever-present call to solidarity on our pilgrimage, solidarity with our brothers and sisters in a creation made and loved by God.
Each of us is called in our way and situation to be a sign of that ever-present resurrection hope and to bear witness to the signs of hope we see in the goodness of those around us, even when the troubles of the world seem overwhelming.
We can get ground down and despair, or worse, become indifferent and drift in distraction. The Pope reminds us that we need moments of greater intensity to allow our hope to grow strong for the journey towards the kingdom.
Letting go of the everyday, recognising our own incompleteness, turning back to the one who alone is our fulfilment. Allowing our hearts to be broken, is to turn the soil, to allow something new to grow, a vision that looks out, hands that reach out, the courage to take a stand, reassurance in our mission.
The Lenten journey is already a pilgrimage of hope. As we receive the sign of our mortality today, it is an invitation to let go of ourselves, to raise our eyes to our fellow mortals and in our small way to be faithful signs of resurrection hope.
Lord Jesus, be at our side as we begin our pilgrim journey,
Give us courage and hope upon our way
Give us freedom to be made new
Open our eyes to the beauty and the peril of creation,
Open our hearts to our sisters and brothers in need
Open our hands in generosity and service
Teach us to be faithful signs of your triumph over death
Amid the joys and sorrows, the fears and hopes of our time.
Amen