This commentary from Timothy Schmaltz in Phoenix, Orizona, only arrived in our email box this morning but it is arresting enough to displace the commentary we were planning to bring you today. Tim went to Church yesterday, as he does on Ash Wednesday each year. He ended up coming away with a bevy of confronting questions that he'd like to share with all of you who read Catholica.

ASH WEDNESDAY – A Safe or Dangerous Liturgy?
Some rambling reflections

Excerpts taken from Ash Wednesday's Readings:

Reading I: Jl 2:12-18: "Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart"

Resp Psalm: Ps 51: "O God, a steadfast spirit renew within me."

Reading II: 2 Corinthians 5: "We are ambassadors for Christ,
                                  as if God were appealing through us,
                                  behold, now is the day of salvation."

Gospel: Matthew 6: "When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites,
                                  who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners
                                  so that others may see them."

Like many Catholics, I attended an Ash Wednesday service yesterday. And I am not sure why I attend this annual ritual actually. It is probably a complex mixture of some nostalgic memories of my Catholic school childhood and my adult faith need for ritual and liturgy. I have great childhood memories of hot chocolate milk, huge sweet rolls, and laughter in our church hall after the Catholic school Ash Wednesday service. I am an adult now and not a child, so I began to think why do I continue to do this? There is no sense of obligation or guilt anymore. What is it?

The downtown church where I attend the service at noon is usually packed, standing room only. The prayers and the homily are okay if unremarkable. Yet we all stayed and got our ashes and then rushed onto our next appointment.

Timothy J. Schmaltz lives in Phoenix, Arizona where he regularly contributes to public debates through the media. This photo accompanies one of his articles in The Arizona Guardian.

Driving to my next meeting across town from last Ash Wednesday, I wondered why do we all turn out on this particular day? Even my adult children, typical of their generation and not really institutionally connected, "spiritual not religious" as they say, attend Ash Wednesday services. Then I realized that Ash Wednesday is safe when it should be one of our most dangerous liturgies.

Maybe we come together in this annual ritual because we need this comforting liturgy to remind us to be more compassionate, more prayerful, more giving, more forgiving, and face our death at least intellectually? Maybe we come together because we want our salvation?

But very little is asked of us. Oh yes, we are asked in various ways to repent, ask for forgiveness from those we might have offended, maybe be more generous or do more community service, pray more. But it is all safe, so private, and so personal. It is not the conversion of heart of the Gospel and the day's readings. It is comforting safe, not dangerous to who we are as individuals or as a people.

Even the readings seem to reinforce this private personal piety. The day on which we confront our humanity, we actually turn away from our humanity, our vulnerability and seem to retreat into a personal piety wrapped in a concern for our personal salvation.

I don't think that is what this day is about. That is too childish, too much chocolate milk, giving up candy, and being more patient with my sisters. It all seems too safe. And such distant memories.

• We are a country at war, we are killing others, and our people have died and are dying. Many innocent people in these countries, our so-called enemies are dying.
• We are a country experiencing one of the largest public displays of greed and materialism and selfishness and potential fraud ever in our capitalistic system.
• We have more homeless people than we have ever had.
• Millions and millions of our children are without health care.
• Poverty persists among our most vulnerable.
• Racism persists in insidious ways.
• Sexism continues and is mocked for political correctness.
• We are experiencing one of the largest redistributions of wealth in the history of our country and we all seem to accept it.
• The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

Where is the Ash Wednesday homily about ethics at work?

I wonder: Where is the Ash Wednesday homily about ethics at work?

• Where is the challenge to all employers and workers to reflect deeply on their product, its usefulness, its part in God's creation, its contribution to the common good, not just the bottom line?
• Where is the challenge to conversion for treating workers justly with decent pay and decent working conditions, with a little dignity?
• Where is the call to conversion to workers to use their talents for good work, holy work, sacred work that builds useful things that contribute to our community?
• How do we challenge each other to conversion that our morality at work is not private but public? We are gifted for work not to get rich, but to create a community through our business and talents to experience the Reign of God.
• Where is the challenge to realize our work is a public vocation not some private employment where we are not accountable to the greater community for the use of gifts?
• Where is the sense of vocation in our work and not just our career path to more money?
• Where do we need to be converted in our heart to change our behavior in such practical ways in this setting where we spend most of our time?
• Where is the Ash Wednesday challenge to conversion of "loving our enemies" in a country at war?
• What fears, what vulnerabilities in myself do I need to confront so I can convert myself to love and community rather than fear, mistrust, hatred, and finally violence and war?
• How can I help us change as a people to be more caring and loving so all have what they need to live in decency?

The Reign of God ... It is dangerous!

I was once told that we misread the word salvation in the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. I was told that it is not about our appeasing some God in the sky who is judging us so we can get to heaven.

I was told salvation meant freedom. I was told we are saved already. The Reign of God is about freedom, freedom from oppression, freedom from hunger and poverty, freedom from fear, freedom from violence and war, freedom from hatred, freedom to love, freedom to laugh and cry, freedom to do holy work for community, freedom to revel in the sheer delight in our humanity and this great abundant creation we live with in each day.

What if we were challenged to overcome all the suffering in the world to build that form of salvation? We might not solve the mystery of suffering as Job did not, but we might have a deeper understanding of our shared responsibility for each other and this world.

That is the Reign of God. It is dangerous. It is public spirituality and conversion, not private piety and personal salvation. Our prayer then becomes our response to life, how we use our God-given talents for community. But just like the readings, our prayer is so filled with our humanity, so filled with goodness, it is not noticed, but only the results: the Reign of God. We have connected and not separated our lives so we don't need to worry about being hypocrites.

The challenge we each should face every Ash Wednesday...

That is the challenge of conversion we each should face every Ash Wednesday. We should not worry about dying and going to heaven. September 11 taught us that once again so profoundly, we have found that we have very little control over our death.

As we were praying the Our Father with our hands joined, the words "deliver us from evil" pounded in my head and heart. I thought the safe prayer would be one of protecting me and my family from all that bad evil doers in the world, like those who blow up buildings and kill innocent people. The dangerous prayer is how do I contribute to the evil of poverty or violence or prejudice or hatred. The safe prayer would be: save me from my fears. The dangerous prayer might be: how do I create a world without fear, especially of those I fear the most, those most different from me. What do I need to repent of so I can be a sign of unity not fear, love not hatred, peace not violence?

Maybe some churches had a dangerous Ash Wednesday service? Hopefully it was packed too? I wonder, though, if all our Ash Wednesday services were not safe, nostalgic recreations of old rituals in new forms whether our annual ritual would continue to be standing room only? I hope so. We might all be challenged to a deep authentic conversion of heart. The Reign of God would truly be at hand and all could realize their salvation.

Timothy J. Schmaltz. Submitted to Catholica 22 Feb 2012

IMAGE CREDITS:
The Ash Wednesday image used in the headline has been sourced from the blog of Scot Allen: Nachfolge—lFollowing Christ in the real world! nachfolge.blogspot.com.au.

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