Ash Wednesday is an opportunity every year to start Lent with a reminder of just how yucky our sin can be. Even the small cross of ash bestowed on us tickles our noses and threatens to get in our eyes. Children frequently rub the ashes off very soon after receiving them. Adults will wander around town oblivious to the fact of the smudge on their foreheads and are sometimes surprised when someone points out to them that they have a bruise of a strange mark on their faces. Perhaps this tells us something of the effects of sin. By definition, I need to will to sin but so often I will forget, even soon afterwards, what I have done. Yet, the effect of the sin remains and it may well be very visible to others even when I have forgotten about the word or act myself. Thus, Ash Wednesday is a reminder to address the habits and effects of sin in my life so that I may counteract the consequences of my sin and live in true freedom. This freedom is designed for me to do what is good and this requires discipline and self-control. These virtues are exactly what is required to live out a Lent which renders an individual to celebrate Easter with greater joy and true happinesss - free from guilt and unworried by the mark of sin.
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