HOMILY FOR ASH WEDNESDAY 1999
Abbot Timothy Kelly, O.S.B., St. John's Abbey, Minnesota
February 17, 1999

Ash Wednesday begins a period of preparation for the coming celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This day has no meaning except in light of that coming feast. This is a time of preparation for entering boldly into the love God has made known to us through God's own willingness to die for us as expressed in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God.

The discovery of God's love for us is life-changing. It is the conversion we need and the only adequate motivation that can extract us from our selfish ways. It is not the acts of penitence, or the signs that go with repentance, that make a difference. It is the change of heart that comes from the recognition of God's love for us, that brings us willingly into the embrace God offers us, and all people.

What we discover in God's love for us is that, we are loved for no other reason than, God loves us. It is not for our brilliant talents, and our extraordinary accomplishments, but simply because we are singly, and together, the image and likeness of God. We, and all other human persons, are loved by the totality of who God is. The sign of our reception of that love is not ashes, or fasting, or long prayers, or athletic and rigorous ascetical practice. The only sign of our reception of God's love - is our love for all other human persons on the face of this earth.

We cannot love God, and then despise particular persons, because the image and likeness of God is present in every person the world over, and because this is the very presence of God's own self. This is how close to God humanity is. So close, that despising anyone is rejection of God, in whose image that person exists. This is why there must be a fundamental option for the poor, not because they alone are worthy of our love, but because the well-to-do can and do take care of themselves, so also they must care for the poor.

Those who willingly receive the love of God know they must care for those whose poverty and powerlessness means they will be ignored by those who are powerful and selfish. God says, "Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?" (Is. 58:6f).

This is what it means to receive God's love, to accept that we ourselves are the image and likeness of God. This is what it means to recognize that same image and likeness in all others and to love them as we claim to love God. This is the revelation of Holy Week and Easter, that Jesus Christ demonstrates God's total self-giving love for us, a love we seek to assimilate and share.

Ash Wednesday means nothing - unless we keep our eyes focused on the love of God revealed by Christ in his passion, death, and resurrection. On Ash Wednesday our resolve must be to accept that love for the reason God loves us - and therefore to love all who are loved by God for God's reason. We can exclude no one, those near to us or far away, the rich and the poor alike, those we see as advantageous to us, and those who definitely are no advantage to us. The prophet Isaiah tells us: "Then you shall take delight in the Lord, and I will make you ride upon the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of your ancestor Jacob, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken"(Is.58: 14).
Amen.
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