Pope on Ash Wednesday: ‘Call death for what it is’
As Lent begins, Pope Leo says that ashes remind us of “the
weight of a world that is ablaze, of entire cities destroyed by war.”
By Joseph Tulloch
Pope Leo reflected on repentance, community, and death this
evening, as he presided over Ash Wednesday Mass in Rome’s Basilica of Saint
Sabina.
The ashes the attendees were about to receive on their
forehands, he said, remind us of “the weight of a world that is ablaze, of
entire cities destroyed by war.”
The state of the world, Pope Leo stressed, asks us on this
Ash Wednesday “to call death for what it is, and to carry its marks within us”.
Read
the full text of Pope Leo's homily here
The Basilica of Saint
Sabina in Rome during the Mass (@Vatican Media)
Sin, public and
private
Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, the 40-day period of
fasting and prayer that precedes Easter.
This is, the Pope said, “a powerful time for community”.
Today, he noted, community is increasingly rare – but Lent gathers people
together, as “a community of witnesses that recognises their sins”.
These sins, Pope Leo stressed, are both personal and
communal. Sin “afflicts our hearts, and exists within us”. At the same time,
however, it takes place within broader “structures of sin”, which can be
“economic, cultural, political and even religious” in nature.
Lent, Pope Leo underlined, means “daring to be free” of all
this, through repentance and change.
Pope Leo walks in
procession to the Church of St Sabina (@Vatican Media)
The ‘missionary
significance’ of Lent
In today’s secular age, the Pope said, this message is
especially attractive, particularly to young people.
The young, he suggested, understand particularly clearly that
“there should be accountability for wrongdoings in the Church and in the
world”.
Rather than seeing Lent as a private devotion, therefore,
the Pope said, Christians should search for ways to introduce it to “the many
restless people of good will” who are seeking “authentic ways to renew their
lives”
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