Ash Wednesday 2025

No one enters Heaven boasting, “I deserve to be here.”  Yet many live as though salvation is owed to them.

There is a subtle and pernicious attitude pervading Christianity that when adopted causes grave harm.  This attitude seems harmless at first but, beneath the surface, it is dangerously deceptive.  It promotes a lethargic approach to the faith and a cavalier attitude to other real threats that might separate us from God.  It dulls our appetite for what we ought to desire and love.  This destructive mindset is the attitude of presumption.  Presumption blinds us to the gravity of sin.  We assume Heaven is guaranteed, forgetting that our choices – our freedom – matter.

We were created for eternal union with God – not because we earned it, but because of His sheer goodness and love.  Yet presumption dulls our awareness of this gift, making us forget that our choices have eternal consequences.  We exist because He loves us.  All He asks is for us to love Him in return.  And so, in order that we might be able to love Him we were designed with freedom – the capacity to make choices.  After all, love is impossible without freedom.  We do not say that rocks and dirt are able to love.  Why?  Because they do not have free will.  But we, made from dust yet given life, are free and able to love.  But with this freedom comes a terrible possibility.  If we are able to choose love it must also mean that we are able to reject it.  And that is precisely what our first parents did.  They abused their freedom and rejected the love of God by their original sin.

Sin is fundamentally an abuse of the freedom given to us by God.  Sin is saying, “God, I know better.  I know what will satisfy me.  I trust myself more than You.”  Isn’t that what Adam and Eve said not in words but by their actions?  And this disease was passed down from generation to generation so that we inherit this brokenness and the tendency to abuse the freedom that God has given us.  Yet despite all of this, our freedom and capacity to love remains intact.

We do not deserve Heaven because we have abused our freedom and rejected God.  And so it is dangerous to automatically assume admittance through the pearly gates.  No one gets into Heaven and says “I deserve to be here.”  We have access to Heaven because God so loved the world that He sent His only Son to come and rescue us from our self-destructive behavior and tendencies.  We have access to Heaven not because we are basically good people with sincere and good intentions.  We have access to Heaven because of how generous God is.  This generosity, this mercy, must never be presumed or taken for granted.

This is precisely why we need Lent.  The ashes pressed in and smeared onto our foreheads remind us that we are dust, destined for death.  Yet they are also a sign of hope – God does not desire our destruction but our conversion.  He calls us to turn away from sin and live.  Our hope is not in ourselves but in His mercy.  Eternal life is not something we earn but a gift He freely offers.  Lent is meant to awaken us to this truth, to shake us from our spiritual drowsiness and dispel any spirit of presumption that might cling to us.

Let’s make the most out of this Lent.  If we find we have grown lukewarm and cavalier in our Faith, let’s repent of our sins.  Let’s shake off the spirit of presumption and come to God with sorrow for our sins and a willingness to change our minds and hearts.  In these forty days, let’s make the lines for Confession as long as the lines for ashes.