Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, of all the days of the liturgical calendar, Ash Wednesday appears to be one of the most popular, that is if you judge by church attendance. We, we expect to see the churches filled with people when we come to Ash Wednesday: people coming forward to receive ashes that marks the beginning of this Lenten period. We come, we come for the ashes because we know they are a sign of God's enduring mercy because deep down, deep down even, even when all might seem to be going well, we know that we have here no lasting city and that we know in our hearts, that our attention should be turned more regularly to God. His love for us, his way presented in the gospel, that he holds out for us to follow. What brings us to church today, then, is the profound realization that God is merciful, and we come, we come recognizing that the loving forgiveness, the embrace of the compassion of God, is always present to us. All we have to do is ask. One formula for the imposition of ashes today includes, with the signing of the cross, these words, "Remember you are dust and unto dust you shall return." The ritual, the ritual in the signing and in the word speaks to us of both humility and exultation, of death and of new life. The ashes, the ashes signify for you and for me human frailty, our poverty, and the cross highlights salvation through the mercy of God. In his beautiful apostolic exhortation, "The Joy of the Gospel," Pope Francis makes very clear that the world in which we live today radically challenges us in our faith commitment and in our efforts to try to actually, faithfully and truthfully follow the Lord's way. It, it's not enough that we deal with all the consequences of our human frailty: the fall, concupiscence; we also have to recognize that we deal with all the temptations that grow out of the very culture in which we live, and that increasingly seems to find little place for God. Yet you and I know, and that's why we're here, that's why we come to Ash Wednesday, that's why we enter into the Lenten spirit, we know that God is always waiting for us. As Pope Francis reminds us, "We might get tired of asking for God's mercy and forgiveness, but God never gets tired of forgiving us." It's in this very specific salvific perspective that our churches are filled on Ash Wednesday and that you and I come. And we come for those ashes that signify to us our frailty and the sign of the cross that says to us, even in our frailty, even with all our faults, we're capable of something glorious. We're capable of being forgiven; we're capable of continuing our journey that some day we hope will bring us to the very glory of God. And so my brothers and sisters, we take, we take a certain humble pride in receiving those ashes. They say to you and to me, "We don't always get it right," but they also say to you and to me, "In the cross is our victory because of God's loving mercy for each one of us."
