Ash Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Lent - Year of Matthew

Friday-Tuesday – shrovetide

• Have a party, make doughnuts (see recipe).

Ash Wednesday, March 1, 2017   

Ash Wednesday

Receive this cross of ash upon your brow,

Brought from the burning of Palm Sunday's cross;

The forests of the world are burning now

And you make late repentance for the loss.

But all the trees of God would clap their hands,
The very stones themselves would shout and sing,

If you could covenant to love these lands

And recognize in Christ their lord and king.

He sees the slow destruction of those trees,

He weeps to see the ancient places burn,

And still you make what purchases you please

And still to dust and ashes you return.

But hope could rise from ashes even now,

Beginning with this sign upon your brow.

Malcolm Guite (Sounding the Seasons, p. 26)

Commemoration of George Herbert, poet/priest

Is. 58:1-12; Ps.51:1-17; 2 Cor. 5:20b-6:10; Matt. 6:1-6, 16-21

"You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart." Psalm 51:6

In his Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius of Loyola directed his followers to undertake an Examen, a form of prayer, twice daily, perhaps at noon and before bed. One form has this basic movement:

1.  place yourself in God's presence; give thanks for the day;

2.  pray to recognize where God is working in your life;

3.  review your day, moments and feelings;

4.  reflect on your actions: did they lead to, or away from, God;

5.  look toward tomorrow, asking for grace, give thanks.

We are entering into forty days of preparation toward renewed life, the Easter promise of a new dawn, the spring promise of new growth, of truth in our inward being. "Truth happens to the prepared mind,” wrote Bernard Lonergan. Germination of seed is more likely to happen in prepared soil. And so we prepare our heart, through confession, through prayer, through study and reflection. And we begin by making the sign of the cross – with ash – to prepare ourselves to enter the land God has promised, flowing with milk and honey: a right spirit. A land where truth and wisdom reside in the secret heart.

Create in us clean hearts, O God, and renew right spirits within us. Amen

• Veil crosses with deep purple cloth or unbleached muslin, a fast for the eyes.

·       For another form of the Examen, see http://www.diocese.cc/upload/images/originals/Examens070510A.pdf