I've just finished drafting my practice homily for our Residential this weekend, Fri-Sun at the High Leigh Christian Conference Centre in Hertfordshire. During the Residential we have to deliver the practice homily to each other in small groups and take feedback. This is a way of preparing for the preaching element of eventual ordained ministry as deacons. At the Residential we have been asked to preach for a max of 5 minutes a homily suitable for Ash Wednesday - just four weeks away. Here's a preview. I might still change it...............a little here and there.
Homily – Ash Wednesday (5 mins)
And so we begin our Lent. With the placing of the ashes on our foreheads the minister has a choice of injunctions, one more facilitating and encouraging, “Turn away from sin and be faitful to the Gospel” and the other more direct and humbling, “Remember you are dust and to dust you will return.” Together they express something of our human condition, that sin exerts an attraction for us that requires a constant renewal of our efforts, to turn our hearts and minds to our loving Father God who created us from nothing.
The prophet Joel appeals for Israel to return to the Lord, by the interior path of a broken heart rather than the exterior path of a ritually torn garment. Paul, writing to the fractious Corinthians, makes an appeal for them to be reconciled to God.
Scripture is the living Word of God and these texts are addressed to us today, the living community of the Spirit, not just to the dead communities of yesteryear, to turn to God in our hearts and be reconciled to him.
Lent is a special season that the Church provides us with when we can prepare at length to accompany Jesus through his sorrowful passion and redeeming death to his victorious resurrection, by examining our hearts and becoming reconciled to God.
So, how do we make a Good Lent? How do we take this opportunity to press the reset button for our lives?
Well, the Good News my friends, is that today we are being taught by The Master. Taught indeed by God himself. The Gospel we have heard from Matthew, is part of the Sermon on the Mount discourse, when Jesus teaches us his disciples about the new way of living. During this discourse Jesus validates and re-presents the traditional Jewish works of piety by specifiying the humble behaviours that must accompany them.
Jesus as Teacher of us his disciples, provides us with a framework that we can use to have a Good Lent. And the framework is composed of almsgiving, or good deeds, prayer and fasting.
These are the traditional means by which we can discipline ourselves and make battle against our inclinations to turn away from God.
Now is a good time to review our charitable giving. Are we giving anything to anyone? Are we sharing our financial good fortune with those who have less? CAFOD and ACN are two Catholic charities that spring to mind. Equally can we give some time to help others in some direct way as well as financially, and especially if we ourselves are not well off financially? There are no shortage of volunteering opportunities. No shortage of need for human contact and warmth.
Now is a good time to review our practice of prayer. Are we praying at all? Or only when we are at Church? What about maybe setting aside some significant time each day to read one of the Gospels this Lent and pray at the same time? To deepen our relationship with God. Less TV. Less social media networking, FaceBooking, Twittering and blogging. More prayer. More Scripture.
Now is a good time to deny ourselves and discipline our bodies in our culture of excess and greed by fasting from foods we like. Especially during the Friday’s of Lent, in remembrance of the passion of the Lord and in solidarity with the poor, who often have no option but to endure the fast imposed upon them by the rich and the satisfied of this world.
By themselves, alms giving, good deeds, prayer and fasting, will not renew our hearts and reconcile us to God. It is not about us. What we are doing. It is about God and the action of his Holy Spirit. However, when done with the right intention, not like the hypocrites, they do open up another channel in our relationship with God, making us more receptive to Grace, that free gift of a share in God’s life, which renews our hearts and reconciles us to him, or as today’s psalm puts it so beautifully, “ a pure heart create for me O God, put a steadfast spirit within me.”
And The Master has taught us in today’s Gospel.......................how to begin..................how to make that happen.
