Via Idle Speculations which has information about the tradition of ashes We have to know what rocks are in the way in order to avoid them.įrom the Initial "M" in the Introit of the Mass of Ashes on Ash Wednesdayįrom the Missal à l'usage de Saint-Didier d'Avignon c. To see how they have become so much more important to us than the harder path that leads us to a more loving relationship with God. Even when we miss it, when we long for it, when we are annoyed because we can't have it, there is still a sense of relief in being forced to see with open eyes just what our addictions really are. Taken in this way, we can see how it is actually a relief to have done self-examination to see what has enslaved us, usually without our having been aware of it at all. He will not allow any competition for his love for all other loves will enslave us if they are not ordered to him, who alone can render us free.
He also and more profoundly liberates us from within for once we have received him, he beings making order within us, freeing us from all that prohibits us from the interior freedom that characterizes the children of God. He does not merely liberate us from without, by removing obstacles that would hinder his coming into our hearts. As servant, he not only nourishes us, however but he also liberates us fro inordinate attachments that both weigh us down and enslave us. It is he who sets the table before us, who washes our feet, waits upon us, and invites us to eat of his own body. He wants our hearts precisely so that he might reign there: more as servant than as king. When, however, we seek to serve God, we soon learn that we thereby allow God to serve us. From precisely that standpoint, we quickly fall into the trap of serving someone or something else: our self-images, our bosses, our spouses, our corporations, our tyrannical two-year-olds or teenagers, our homes, our cards, our portfolios, our social statuses, our egos, and the list goes on and on.
Strange as it might seem, we are not really free when we consider ourselves the masters of our own lives. Nor has he freed us from the slavery of our sin so that we might bow down to the work of our own hands or to any other creature, including ourselves and our own desires. God did not save the Israelites from slavery in Egypt so that they might become slaves again by bowing down to the golden calf in the desert. You cannot serve God and mammon." (Mt 6:24) He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.
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