Mastering Sin and Conquering Pride

I was walking toward my office building Subway this afternoon. As I walked past some tables I noticed a woman, then a man in a business suit chatting at one of the tables. On his forehead the mark of the beginning of the Lenten season, a blessed black ash smear in the form of a cross. It was quite the dark dollop of ash.

It was a lovely integration of the secular and the religious so rarely seen in our society. This man was saying something that a fair number of Catholics around the country, around the world, said today. Together, we fallen humans, enter into the season which re-presents the once for all act of salvation that restored the relationship broken asunder by the misuse of Eve's, and then Adam's, free will.

It is not just what we heard as children "Remember Man, that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return". It is so much more than that. For after the suffering and death and the becoming of dust, because of the amazing act of God made Man, becoming us, to save us, we can look forward, if we work to master the still extant sinfulness to which we remain heir, and try not to grasp at being God, but allow God to give us a share in His Divinity, freely, in exchange only for our devotion, and our faithfulness. That's what the mark on his head signified. A "yes" to the Hope that God restored, if only this time, we use our free will wisely.