Dear Parishioners and Friends of St. Mary Anne’s,

Ash Wednesday and Lent can be really dreary and tedious – all that emphasis on our sin, somber music in church, “doom, gloom and ashes.”

For me, however, (this year at least), Ash Wednesday was positively up-beat!  I felt a whole lot better after the services on that day than I had felt the night before.  I have been trying to figure out why.

What keeps coming to me, pretty clearly, is that this season reminds me of who I am.  I will not live forever, I will not save the world (and certainly myself) by my clever achievements of creative actions.  All things come to an end – every day, as I forget God, reject God, and depend on myself alone; everyday as I continue to act as if I am creator and redeemer, on my own.

Ash Wednesday, and the whole season of Lent, proclaim Good News clearly: “We are dust, and to dust we shall return!”  Good News?  Yes – because God has made us for this end and purpose, it is God’s will for us, and, as such, (even though it sometimes doesn’t seem so to us), God’s will is, in fact Good News, the best news we can ever get.

Recognition of our mortality and of our sin moves us into the sphere of God’s eternal love.  Knowing we sin, knowing we die, is a gift, God’s gift.  Accepting our mortality, repenting of our sin, frees us to receive all of God’s gifts.  We are free to enjoy life (God’s greatest gift) every day.  We are free to know and love God, and one another, instead of being burdened with fear and preoccupied with false hopes and desires of power and wealth and of our own self-worth and self-sufficiency.

During Lent, we will be considering all the blessings of God, the gifts from God which enrich our lives, and the reasons that we ignore and block out these gifts.  May God bless you all in this holy season.

Faithfully,

Fr. Sam