February 17, 2010
Ash Wednesday
Yet even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment. Joel 2:12-13
So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. 2 Corinthians 5:20-21
But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you. Matthew 6:6
Piety
Father, your demands of discipleship are strict. Walk with us for the next forty days of this Lenten journey as we strive to follow your wishes and build your Kingdom here on earth. We ask this through the friendship and support provided by your son Jesus and through the intervention of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Study
Ash Wednesday is kind of like an anniversary of Your Daily Tripod. All kinds of messages came together on that day in 2006 while I sat in Mass at Missionhurst and Fr. Bill Quigley preached about being “ambassadors of Christ” (and also played “Dust in the Wind” as the meditation song after communion).
Playing the role of ambassador is our Confirmation responsibility. It also is our Fourth Day responsibility as Cursillistas. Yet how do we balance the public role of ambassador with the admonition in Matthew to conduct our religious life in private?
As the notes to the New American Bible explain, the declaration about our representation of the Lord is a “statement of God's purpose, expressed paradoxically in terms of sharing and exchange of attributes. As Christ became our righteousness (1 Cor 1:30), we become God’s righteousness (cf 2 Cor 5:14-15).”
But God’s intention also is to call on each of us to have a personal (i.e. non-public) relationship with Him. Through prayer, fasting and almsgiving, we should conduct ourselves in private so as not to appear to be doing any of these acts for personal gain. Our purpose is to advance, not ourselves, but the Kingdom of God. But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you. Matthew 6:6
Three times Matthew reminds us that our reward will come from our “Father who sees in secret will repay you.”
Action
How do we reconcile these seemingly conflicting instructions? Be ambassadors but do it in secret? Let’s turn to the two foundational symbols which make the cornerstone of our faith and the Cursillo movement – the cross and the tripod.
We do not only have one role any more than Jesus had one role. He was Son of God as well as fully human. We have to balance our different roles and responsibilities in order to have a fully mature relationship with God.
In our personal relationship (friendship) with God, we are to conduct ourselves privately from our inner room. That is the vertical direction. However, in spreading God’s word and His kingdom on earth, we must reach out in all directions as Christ does on the cross. That is the horizontal dimension of our faith. We need both working in order to have a complete relationship with God.
What we do in that relationship is also measured out in the three facets of the Cursillo method – piety, study and action. Each complements the other two but can not stand alone. We must retreat into our private inner room in order to gain strength and support to go out into the world as ambassadors for Christ. We must lean on the support we get from others in our group reunion in order to continue to work in the world.
As we mark the first day of our Lenten season of fasting, almsgiving and prayer, let us offer up this balanced role as a way of growing in our faith and friendship this special season.
