Ash Wednesday
/ 5 March 2014
•• Joel
2:12-18 •• Psalm 51 ••
2 Corinthians
5:20-6:2 •• Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18 ••
Title: Can You Keep A
Secret?
[__01__] Do you
and I know any secrets? Can we keep a secret?
Such a question is asked - perhaps on the back stairs or in the back
room – before someone entrusts us with some sensitive information … or, maybe
solicits information from us .. .this information that other people don’t want
published, revealed or re-Tweeted.
Can you keep a secret? Can I
keep the information to myself?
[__02__] Today is Ash Wednesday, starting our 40 days
of Lent.
We are asked, here in the
Gospel, can we are asked in the Gospel about the secrets – and the private
nature of …. prayer, fasting, and almsgiving/charitable giving.
[__03__] Our Lord cautions us about the demnstrations….
public or ostentatious display of our prayer, fasting and almsgiving…
We pray, fast, and give not to
attract attention but to purify our hearts and our minds.
Also, isn’t it true that a
secrets are shared between confidantes … between friends?
A secret or a confidence
shared is, at times, critical to a relationship.
Secrecy – or the private
nature of Lent – for us is also encouraged so that we can grow in knowledge and
in our intimacy … with
- FIRST - our neighbors – to know another
person better
- SECONDLY - to know ourselves and God better
We grow in knowledge.
[__05__] FIRST,
to know our neighbor and to be
forgiving…
John Henry Newman – Cardinal
Newman – observes that we know “secrets” or the secret faults about our
neighbors.
This is not because we have
broken through their firewalls or have tapped their iPhones…
In fact, may know these
secrets whether we have actually received private email or eavesdropped on
conversations.
That is, we know – or we think
we know – the “secret faults” of those closest to us.
We may claim to know – or
really know – the faults of another person better than he or she knows. On the other hand, someone may also know may
faults and failings better or differently than I know them.
This Lenten journey of 40 days
reminds us to pray for our neighbors, even while seeing faults and sins in
them.
Yes, we may be right about
their faults. But, can we not strive to keep them a secret ..or at least
between God and ourselves?
[__06__] SECONDLY, to know ourselves.
This secret
nature of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving enables us to know ourselves and to
know God better.
Newman writes that
self-examination leads us to faith, confidence in God.
This is the purpose of our
religious practice. For what is “religion”
doing? What religion is doing [on
the outside] is calling us to consider the secrets [on the inside]
We might say, then, that the
“external” fasting ..or the external cross on our foreheads … makes us consider
the interior and the internal… there are surprises and secrets here…
For example, when we are
fasting we are called to remember not just that we have physical desires
unsatisfied but also to meditate on our spiritual needs.
Newman writes – “[religion]
startles us and makes us turn inward and search our hearts and then when we have experienced what is to
READ ourselves – [to read our own thoughts and hearts] then, we shall profit by
reading / hearing the doctrines of the Church and of the Gospel”[1]
Thus, we are called to know
our own secret faults…
Keeping my faults “secret”
does means – in the Christian/Catholic life – acknowledging them, repenting of
them, rather than making excuses for them.
This is humility… which is
also a necessary virtue in keeping a secret, a confidence.
No comments:
Post a Comment