With dust-like ashes crossed upon our foreheads, each one of us is firmly presented with Ash Wednesday’s wake-up call that our mortal body, this earthly life, is passing away – sooner than we realize – and that you and I would be wise to diligently prepare for eternity by getting our lives in God-like order. And an excellent way to begin is to keep in mind Ash Wednesday’s stark call: “Remember you are dust and to dust you will return.”
Another essential message presented to us as we received ashes is that we are to “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.” Scripture often equates sin with darkness – the inability to see clearly, causing us to stumble around in this life with no clear direction; with no sure way to the truth that sets us free – free from enslaving deadly sin.
Left unchecked, with no repentance, our many collective individual sins metastasize into what St. Pope John Paul II called the “structures of sin” – those larger elements within our cultures, societies, governments and corporations that operate in the darkness of self-absorbed greed, power-lust, violence and indifference to suffering.
We desperately need to turn away from sin – both personal sin and the structures of sin. An honest look into many of our human-made institutions surely reveals decadent sinful structures that need conversion.
From abortion to war, from poverty and hunger to homelessness, from harsh indifference towards migrant workers and their families to mass deportation of undocumented residents, from sweatshop labor to low minimum wages, from the international arms trade to neighborhood gun violence, from nuclear weapons to astronomical military budgets, from lack of affordable health care to pandemics like COVID-19, from drug addiction to insufficient drug treatment facilities, from crumbling infrastructures to unemployment, from racism to human trafficking and from environmental pollution to catastrophic climate change … it is undeniable that our world is deeply suffering from satanic inspired, human-caused structures of sin.
But as St. Paul confidently reminds us, “Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more.” So, with the overflowing grace of God’s active presence, let us dismantle the structures of sin, and build structures worthy of human beings – for the greater glory of God!
Each nation, and the entire world, desperately needs a new standard to measure human progress: not gross national product, not the stock market and not military supremacy.
The new standard we need to creatively envision and fully implement is as old as the Sermon on the Mount and Christ’s final judgment of the nations (Matt. 25:31-46). And it’s as modern as Catholic Social Teaching.
Pope Francis consistently taught us to see how all of humanity is interconnected. And that we are interconnected to all of creation. In order to survive and thrive, we need to join hands and hearts in prayer, and to tirelessly work together to build a world of love, social justice and peace.
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”
As we walk with increasing faithfulness in the Master’s footsteps, we become increasingly radiant like him. And we begin to better understand and more fully live out his related challenge to us: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. … Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.”
There is no better time than Lent to “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel!”
Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings. Tony can be reached at tmag6@comcast.net.
