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February 18, 2021
Abu Dhabi.
Below is the full text of the homily delivered by Bishop Paul Hinder on Ash Wednesday at St. Joseph's Cathedral, Abu Dhabi.
Readings of the Day: Jl 2:12-18, 2 Cor 5:20—6:2, Mt 6:1-6, 16-18
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,May the Lord give you peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
We can read today’s scripture readings like a hidden love story, respectively resume the love story. God is like a lover who calls back the bride who had betrayed him. And it is a heartbreaking call, but full of tenderness and love: "Now, now come back!" The Gospel readings are chosen so that we ourselves can also make the appeal - we are his bride who has to come back: "Now, now come back with all your heart, let your hearts be broken, not your garments to be torn!"
Turn to the Lord your God again, for he is all tenderness and compassion. Keep that in mind during the whole Lenten season, because Lent is not primarily a season of ascetic efforts, a kind of spiritual athletism, but a time of joyful penance and turning back to the first love, as the Book of Revelation would say.
We have lost very often, the first love. Let us resume. It is an invitation that we hear also from St. Paul: "Be reconciled. We called you as his ambassadors, come back. Now is the favourable time to answer God. This is the day of salvation, the time of salvation."
Lent is therefore, not a time of show, it is not the spiritual show business, it is the time of humble acting according to the teaching of Jesus as we heard.
The distribution of the ashes will remind us that from where we come and where we go. But then, there are three points that Jesus is giving us as agenda: giving alms without trumpeting to the public, discreet love-offerings, prayer to the Heavenly Father without making a lot of noise and fasting from food, drink and many other things that are not needed in order to prepare our hearts for the Heavenly Food, the Bread of Life, for the Holy Spirit given by the Risen Lord as the love of God put into our hearts.
Let us not delay, now, now, come back to him who loves each one of us through and through.
Amen.