Ash Wednesday. 2014.

Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.

Fortunately, my sister and I clarified with the middle school kids on Monday night

that these are the ashes from the palms used on Palm Sunday of the previous year,

not the ashes of the deceased.

The relief washed over their faces like a tidal wave.

There is still an element of mortality present though.

Our bodies will die.

Our souls have the opportunity for life everlasting.

With all credit due to Christ.

We truly are nothing without him.   

Especially when we give up chocolate.

Then we reeeeally need Christ.

We have an opportunity these days of Lent

to become even more dependent on Christ.

De Montfort adopted a motto for his life,

‘God alone’.

His life and writings used God alone as the focal point.

Lent is a brilliant time to reinstate God alone in our lives.

Removing something from our lives allows more room for God.

“My God…I adore you and acknowledge you

as my sovereign Lord and Master upon whom alone I depend.”

De Montfort knew that we must free ourselves from our worldly idols

and from our own egos

in order that we might fully experience and comprehend adoring God alone.

 “True adoration is a gift from on high

and takes the form of responding in love to the revelation,

in Christ, of the true face of God.”

“To adore this presence means to become involved in the disappearance from the world of idolatries 

and ideologies that become the means of oppressing the children of God.”

Lent for us can be like Narnia for the Pevensie kids.

Entering a new world,

with new opportunities.

Letting go of the things of this world,

and adoring the God who so loves us.