This Lent Get Your Passions Under Control Series

Ash Wednesday Homily

What brings us here today so early? We are here because we want something. Not a mere smear of black soot, no. If that were our goal, we’d be certifiably insane. We are here because we want at the end of our lives to be united with the Blessed Trinity forever, body and soul, in eternal peace, rest and joy. But God has made us with passions. He really wants us to live full lives. We take pleasure in the lesser goods of earth–food, drink, beauty, sex. And if we take too much pleasure there, we can treat them as if they were the highest good and we fall into sin. You know what sin is. We are all of us sinners. We don’t like ourselves when we sin. Our conscience punishes us, whenever we ignore the Ten Commandments, when we treat ourselves as little gods and don’t love the real God and our neighbor rightly.

Lent is a great annual gift. It helps us to get right with God and neighbor. It helps us put our passions under management of our minds and wills. Start off, then, with a good examination of conscience. Put February 28 on your to-do list. Twice that day we will have a whole raft of priests here to celebrate reconciliation. Come and repent, make a firm resolution to stop those sins, confess them and be absolved. Even if it’s been a while, get in here and get right with God. And every Catholic church in this area has such a day, so you can get on the Internet and find one that is right with your schedule.

Second, find the passion that is doing you the most harm. After confessing that, work on wanting and attaining the opposite virtue. If you get angry easily, pray for patience and then practice it daily. If pride, pray for humility and welcome humiliations.

And, yes, fast, pray and give alms. We have all kinds of opportunities here to do these goods. Don’t arrive at Easter and find that all you have to bring to Mass is a new garment. Put on virtue. Put on Jesus Christ.