Homily for Ash Wednesday: February 17, 2010

Given by the Most Reverend Stephen E. Blaire at St. Mary’s High School in Stockton.

Your high school years represent the fastest growing period of your development in life. You enter high school as an adolescent. You graduate as a young adult. During these years of transition from adolescence to adulthood your feelings are very deep; your sexual drive is very strong; friendships and peer values are important to you. Because it is a time of socialization, learning to build new relationships with other people, it is very healthy for your development to be part of a group, whether a club, or a team or a parish youth group or student government.

Today we begin the season of Lent, forty days of being close to Jesus, in preparation for the great Feast of Easter. Ash Wednesday, Lent and Easter are all about the body in which you live. Ash Wednesday reminds us that we come from the earth. One of the prayers said when we receive ashes goes like this: “Remember, you are dust, and to dust you will return.” We come from the earth as humans and we go back to the earth when we die. Lent is a time to give attention to our bodies. The Church wants to help you become men and women who live in their bodies for God and for the good of others. God has given us our bodies. Whether you like the way you look or not, you are who you are. There is only one of you even if you are an identical twin. Be grateful to God for your body. You might as well accept and like your bodies because you will be living in them all your life. Your body is a gift from God to you. In your bodies you do everything. You eat, you pray, you see, you hear, you walk, you text message (not during class, of course), you help someone in need, you talk to other people, you become friends. You do everything in your body.

During Lent the Church has something really important to say to you about what you can do in your body to help you grow closer to God, to be a better person and to be more loving to others.

First of all, Lent is a time of prayer. You can make a point of it to find a few minutes each day to be with Jesus. Just be with him. You do not have to say anything. In fact it is better if you listen to what He has to say to you. You can find what he says to you in the Sacred Scriptures, especially the Gospels. You become like the people you hang out with, so why not hang out with Jesus for a few minutes each day during Lent.

Secondly, Lent is a time of self-denial. It ‘s OK to give up candy or movies. But it is much better to give up anything which hurts your body, like drugs, alcohol, too much fast food, party sex, and other destructive activities, like too much time playing computer games. People seem to feel a need for constant excitement and so they often end up doing things which may not be good for them. Usually when they do these things they do not pray or spend much time with God. During Lent why not give up anything which does not help you to be the beautiful person you are, the person God wants you to be.

Thirdly, Lent is a time of almsgiving, a time of being generous. Nothing makes you more an adult than to be generous, able to forget about yourself and to think about others. Acts of kindness and generosity bring out the best in you.

Your body is the house of God. God lives in you. St. Paul says that the body is meant for the Lord and the Lord for the body. Lent is a great time to live in your bodies the way God wants.

Easter is the Feast of the bodily Resurrection of Jesus. After we die we will be raised up in new and glorified bodies with Jesus. Lent is a good time for us to learn to live in our bodies as Jesus lived in His body, a good time for us to think about how we can get close to Jesus and become more like Him.

Last Update February 16, 2010