Its inevitability comes as an enormous relief and a beginning of wisdom. What perishes in this world is considered treasure because we think it will last, while that which is stored up in heaven tends to look more pitiably perishing in human eyes. It was said in ancient Greece that the immortal gods envied us human beings our mortality. They who would not die could not love with the same intensity nor see the world changed with the same glory as we do whose days are numbered. The ashes tell of his nearness to us.
Today is about death and ashes.
It is also about our hearts and about what breaks them open to experience God's incredible love and grace. Lent is a time when the followers of Jesus, the Christ, make a conscious commitment to open their hearts, to break down any barriers to a new heart. If we want God to create a new heart within us, we must approach Lent with concentration, courage, urgency, intensity, and vulnerability. One way to examine our hearts is to spend time each day with the people, events, the encounters, the chance conversations, the books, music, poetry, and scripture that have shaped our lives. We need to remember those first places our hearts broke open to receive God's love in changing our lives.