By Rev Fr. Anthony Aneke
Today, Wednesday , March 5, 2025 is Ash Wednesday., the begining of Lenten period. In this publication, the Communications Director, Enugu Catholic Diocese , Rev Fr Anthony Aneke , delivered a homily on the topic’ Ashes of hope”. He spoke on significance of ashes , the supremacy of God , mortality and immortality of man.
Full Text;
The Lenten Period begins today Ash Wednesday. I hope you are ready to make this journey of repentance marked by intense prayer, fasting, almsgiving and other forms of charitable works. It is a special moment to grow in faith, hope and charity. In fact, it is a special moment God is giving you to have a fresh encounter with him. Don’t miss it. He is a God of new hopes, new beginnings and new possibilities. In fact, God of many second chances. The Lenten period is another second chance for you.
The Lenten period begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Saturday, the day before Easter. When we exclude Sundays, that makes a total of forty days. The number forty is very symbolic. The earliest reference we have to a forty day preparation for Easter is in the canons of the Council of Nicaea (A.D. 325). One of the most expressions of its meaning however appears in the work of St. John Cassian in the fifth century. He describes Lent as “the tithes of the year”, because it is roughly a tenth of the days in a year. We give those days to the Lord as a special offering; and in doing so; we imitate his own fast, as he intended us to do. Cassian also notes the Old Testament models of Israel in the wilderness, of Moses and Elijah, who also underwent forty days fast.
The placing of ashes on our fore heads with the words, “dust you are and unto dust you shall return” or “repent and believe the gospel” is very remarkable. What does Ash mean for you on Ash Wednesday?
The bible tradition first speaks of ashes as a symbol of Mourning and repentance. We see this in the biblical stories of David, of Job, Esther, of Jonah and the Ninevites, of the prophets like Jeremiah. In each of this episode, individuals acknowledge their nothingness before God and express their sorrows to God because of their sins and ask for forgiveness, making promises of repentance.
Again, ashes symbolizes our frailty and hence our mortality. This is the fact that we are not strong as we think we are. We are not powerful as we think we are. We are finite. We are limited. And such, we will certainly die one day.
Finally, Ashes symbolize our final destiny – Gen: 2:8. We come from Dust and we are going back to dust.
Do we really and wholly come from dust? No. Remember, God breathed into dust and man came to be. We are all breaths of an Immortal God. And that’s how we reflect his image and likeness. If this is true, then ashes represent just the vehicle of our material existence. It does not tell the full story of our nature. But it does point to a powerful God who by the very fact of his breath, we are immortal.
So the paradox is, ashes tell us about our nothingness and at the same time our somethingness. Ashes tell about our mortality and also about our immortality. But most importantly, Ashes tell about the all-powerful God who can turn “nothing” into something and something into nothing. It is this God who can turn these ashes again into a glorious resurrected body. That God is all final end. Our Immortality can end either in his grace or in disgrace. Only those who have identified with his grace that will end his grace at the end. Ashes speaks of the hope our immortality in his grace. Lent is a period of extravagant grace my dear brothers and sisters. Don’t miss it.
May the ashes on your forehead today incite your hope of genuine repentance and faith in his mercy. May these ashes remind you of your nothingness before God and your ‘somethingness’ with Him. May the ashes always remind you of the vanity of your mortality also and also the profundity of your immortality with Him.
Happy Ash Wednesday