INSIDE AMERICA

FROM DUST TO TRIUMPH
LENT AS A TIME OF REPENTANCE ALSO MEANS REMEMBRANCE OF OUR CORRUPTIBLE HUMANITY, WHILE DRAWING US TOWARD THE GOSPEL AND ULTIMATELY THE RESURRECTION: "THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE OVER BIOLOGY." STARTING WITH OUR BAPTISM, IN LENT AND EASTER WE CELEBRATE THE EMBRACE OF THIS LOVE IN THE WORD AND IN THE FLESH OF OUR VERY LIVES.

BY LORENZO ALBACETE

THOSE OF YOU OF A MORE "MATURE" AGE WILL ACTUALLY REMEMBER HOW LENT BEGAN. IT BEGAN WITH AN APPEAL TO MEMORY: "REMEMBER MAN!!" LENT IS INTRODUCED LITURGICALLY AS A TIME OF REMEMBRANCE—NOT AS A RECOLLECTION OF SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED IN THE PAST, BUT AS AN AWARENESS OF SOMETHING THAT IS HAPPENING NOW: "BE AWARE OF THIS, O MAN!" OF WHAT? "YOU ARE DUST [MADE OF DUST] AND TO DUST YOU SHALL RETURN" (GENESIS 3:19).

Now, granted, this is not a very happy, positive outlook on life—at least it doesn't seem so—so it was changed to something less offensive to our modern sensibilities. Now, the distributor of ashes has a choice: use the traditional formula about dust, or one of the following two: "Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel," or, "Repent and hear the good news," both referring to Mark 1 (1 and 15). However, the new language may sound more positive but, in fact, they all mean the same. (And for that matter, they are inseparable from the Easter message, as we shall see.)

We are indeed made of dust and will again become dust someday. The Resurrection of Jesus proclaims the victory of divine love over the law of corruption and decay that marks the boundary of human possibilities. Easter is, in the words of Pope Benedict, the triumph of love over biology. ("Biology" is a fancier, less threatening term than "made of dust.") But in order to appreciate the "good news," we must "remember," be "aware" of our true human condition: from dust, of dust, to dust. To be "faithful to the Gospel," therefore, is the same—or at least necessarily includes—remembering that we are made of dust and do not have the ability to escape returning to dust unless... unless we hear the good news and be faithful to the Gospel. But what concretely does this mean?

The season of Lent is a time to celebrate the miracle of Baptism. Remembering the reality of our inability to escape from the law of corruption and decay unto death is an element of our celebration of the miracle, the gift, the grace of Baptism as the means of uniting our human life to that of Jesus Christ, whose death as a sacrifice of love opened our existence to a share in His Divine Life and thus escape from our enslavement to the "law of dust."

The "good news" or " Gospel" is thus not only a verbal communication to be kept in mind; it is an event, the event of Christianity itself, made tangible, sensual, through the waters of Baptism that unite us to the Church as the one "Body of Christ." So important is this that the Catholic Church has never hesitated to insist on the validity of infant Baptism and Baptism by non-believers who baptize someone in danger of death by simply "intending what the Church intends" through her rite of Baptism.

From dust to a share in the life which the triumphant God-Man now lives... truly an awesome journey!

To all, then, remember that you are dust, and happy Easter!!