Ash Wednesday - You Are Going To Die

 

Homily for Ash Wednesday

February 14, 2024

You Are Going To Die

 

            You are going to die.

            I know, not a very pleasant thought. But that doesn’t make it untrue. In one hundred years, your body will resemble these ashes that in a few short moments we will place on our foreheads.

            And then…eternity.

            It is hard to fathom eternity. Picture a bird flying past Mount Everest, once every thousand years, and removing a single speck of dust from the top of the mountain. When the mountain is worn down to sea level, eternity begins.

            And while our bodies turn to dust, our souls will still be very much alive for eternity – either as an eternal triumph in Heaven, or an eternal tragedy in Hell. There will be no other options.

            So, our Lord gives us this blessed season of Lent as a course correction. If we have been living for the empty trinkets this world proposes as happiness: pursuing money, worldly success, pleasures at every moment, making sure our kids excel in every sport…then Lent is a call to abandon the pursuit of this passing world and focus on the joys that await us in eternity. If we have been pursuing Heaven slowly, lukewarmly, living as a mediocre Christian, then Lent spurs us on to begin anew, with fervor and zeal, to pursue the only thing that really matters: holiness in abundant life in Christ.

            Certain Catholic monks greet one another with the phrase, Memento Mori. This is usually translated “Remember your death.” But a better translation is “Remember to die” – remember to daily put to death all in your nature that is rooted in this world, that we may live for Heaven alone. Because in a hundred years, this passing world will be of no interest to you or me, as our bodies will lie in the dust, and our souls will reap the fruits of the choices we have made: eternity with God, or eternity without Him.

            Remember, O Man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.