God bless us and may the Virgin protect us.

Here is the commentary for the Ash Wednesday readings

5 March 2025  (year C)

The liturgy of Ash Wednesday, which opens Lent, was once marked by the beginning of public penance today and the start of the last stretch of the formation of catechumens, who prepared to receive baptism at the Easter Vigil. Symbolising the call to prayer and conversion of heart, which proclaims the texts of Holy Scripture, is the rite of ashes, a sign of penance and conversion.  It is an 'austere symbol' with which we begin the spiritual journey of Lent, recognising that our body, formed from dust, will return to dust, and therefore we are invited to make our existence a sacrifice God in union with the death of Christ Jesus. What illuminates Ash Wednesday and the whole of Lent is the event of the Resurrection of Jesus, which we will celebrate with renewed hope in this Jubilee year. Ash Wednesday is a day of penance, fasting and almsgiving, which is to be understood as sharing what we are and what we possess with our brothers and sisters for the glory of God. This requires the courage to give up something that costs us in order to live Lent as a time of true inner purification. 

*First Reading from the Book of the Prophet Joel (Gl 2:12-18) 

Return to the Lord with all your heart! This is the invitation that the prophet Joel issues to us today. His book is very short (it contains a total of seventy-three verses divided into four chapters) and is set around the year 600 BC, i.e. just before the exile in Babylon. There are three constantly intertwining themes: the prospect of terrible scourges, heartfelt appeals to fasting and conversion, and the proclamation of God's salvation. Today it is the second theme that the liturgy proposes to us at the beginning of Lent. The solemn call to conversion urges us to take seriously what follows, namely the invitation: 'Return to me', and the people respond and plead: 'Forgive, Lord, your people and do not expose your inheritance to the mockery and derision of the nations. The prophets always teach not to be satisfied with outward manifestations and Joel also does not fail to emphasise this: 'Tear your hearts and not your garments and return to the Lord your God, for he is merciful'.  This is what Isaiah says: 'Though you multiply your prayers, I do not listen: your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, purify yourselves. Turn away from my eyes your evil deeds, cease to do evil. Learn to do good, seek justice..." (Is 1:14-17). And Psalm 50/51 comments 'The sacrifice that pleases God is a contrite spirit; a sorrowful and humiliated heart, O God, you do not despise it'. The prophet Ezekiel helps us to understand what the psalmist means: that we must break our hearts of stone so that the heart of flesh may emerge, and the prophet Joel follows this line when he calls for tearing hearts and not garments in order to escape a deserved punishment. For he writes: "who knows that God will not change and repent and leave behind him a blessing?" And he concludes by announcing that forgiveness has already been granted. The liturgical translation says: "The Lord shows jealousy for his land" having had pity on his people, but God's mercy is destined for all men, and this is precisely the message we find in the book of Jonah very similar to that of Joel. In fact, Jonah narrates the conversion of Nineveh, the pagan city that had gone a day's journey proclaiming: 'Forty days more and Nineveh will be destroyed', and the inhabitants immediately believed in God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed themselves in sackcloth, great and small. Even the king of Nineveh laid down his royal mantle, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down on the ashes, and then proclaimed a state of alertness and had everyone in Nineveh cover themselves with sackcloth and call upon God mightily. God saw their conversion and lifted the chastisement he had threatened to inflict (Gen 3:4-10). The secret is that God is overflowing with zeal and love, as Joel reminds us, for all men, and St Paul will say: 'God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us' (Rom 5:8).

*Responsorial Psalm (50 (51).  Forgive us, Lord: we have sinned

Let us also join the people of Israel gathered in the Temple of Jerusalem for a great penitential celebration. They know that they are full of sins, but they know from experience that God's mercy is inexhaustible and so they ask for forgiveness with the certainty of being heard. This was precisely King David's discovery after he sinned with Bathsheba, wife of an officer, Uriah, who was at war at the time. Bathsheba let David know that she was pregnant by him, and David arranged for her betrayed husband to die in battle so that he could take the woman and the child she was carrying for himself for good. The prophet Nathan did not immediately try to make David admit his sin, but first reminded him of God's many gifts and announced forgiveness before David even had time to confess his guilt (cf. 2 Samuel 12). In addition to all the gifts and privileges that God had bestowed upon him, he also added that the Lord was ready to grant him whatever he wished. Throughout history, Israel had occasion to record that God is indeed "the merciful and gracious Lord, slow to anger, rich in faithfulness and loyalty", as he had revealed to Moses in the wilderness (Ex 34:6). The prophets also reiterated this message, and the verses of Psalm 50/51 are full of it. Isaiah, for example, says: "I, I alone blot out your sins for my own sake, and I remember your sins no more" (Isaiah 43:25). The announcement of God's free forgiveness always surprises us: it almost seems too good to be true. For some, it may even seem unfair: if everything is forgivable, why strive to live well? But this means forgetting that we all, without exception, need God's mercy and he surprises us, because, as Isaiah says, God's thoughts are not our thoughts. And it is precisely in forgiveness that God surprises us the most. Let us think of the Gospel parable of the labourers of the last hour: "Can I not do with my things what I will? Or are you jealous because I am good?" (cf. Mt 20:15), to that of the prodigal son (Lk 15): when the ungrateful son returns to his father, animated by motives that are anything but noble, Jesus puts a phrase from Psalm 50 on his lips: "Against you, against you alone have I sinned". And with this single phrase, the broken bond is reconnected. Faced with the ever new proclamation of God's mercy, the people of Israel, who in the Psalms speak for us all, recognise themselves as sinners. Its repentance is not detailed, it never is in the penitential Psalms, but expresses everything in a simple plea: 'Have mercy on me, O God, in your love; in your great mercy blot out my iniquity. Wash me all from my guilt, from my sin make me pure". And God, who is all mercy, attracted by man's misery, waits for nothing more than this humble confession of our poverty. And it is useful to remember that 'mercy' has the same root as 'almsgiving' and this reminds us that we are beggars of love and forgiveness before God. What to do then: give thanks and forgive. Give thanks for the forgiveness that God continually offers us. In every penitential celebration, the most important prayer is the recognition of God's gifts and forgiveness. First of all, we must contemplate God himself, and only then can we acknowledge ourselves as sinners. The Rite of Reconciliation clearly states that we confess God's love along with our sin, and praise will spring spontaneously from our lips: "Lord, open my lips and my mouth will proclaim your praise" (this is the phrase that opens the Liturgy of the Hours, every morning and is taken from Psalm 50/51) in which we are reminded that praise and gratitude will only arise in us if God opens our hearts and lips. And the second step that God expects of us and constitutes the ascetic programme of our whole life is the commitment to forgive in our turn, without delay or conditions. 

*Second Reading from St Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians (5:20-6:2) 

"Be reconciled to God"! Paul speaks of reconciliation well aware of the breaking of the covenant between God and his people. In the Old Testament, the people knew that God is not at odds with mankind, as Psalm 102/103 clearly expresses: 'The Lord is not always quarrelling, he does not retain his wrath forever; he does not treat us according to our sins, he does not repay us according to our faults... As far as the east is from the west, so he turns away from us our faults... He knows of what we are made, he remembers that we are dust.  Similarly, we read in Isaiah: "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, who will have mercy on him, to our God, who forgives abundantly" (Isaiah 55: 7), and in the Book of Wisdom: "You have compassion on all, for you can do all things, and you shut your eyes to the sins of men, waiting for their repentance... Your sovereignty over all makes you forgiving to all" (Wisdom 11: 23; 12: 16). David had this experience when he slew Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, and God sent him the prophet Nathan who, in essence, said to him: All that you have, I have given you; and if it were not yet enough, I would be ready to give you again all that you desire. God was not even unaware that Solomon had obtained the throne by eliminating his rivals, yet he heard his prayer at Gibeon and granted his requests far beyond what the young king had dared to ask for (1 Kings 3). But there is more: God's very Name, 'Merciful', means that he loves us the more miserable we are. Therefore, God is not in dispute with man. Yet Paul speaks of reconciliation, because from the beginning of the world (Paul says 'from Adam', but it is the same thing), it is man who is in conflict with God. The Genesis account (Gen 2-3) attributes the origin of this accusation against God to the serpent because he is jealous of man and does not want his good: "God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Gen 3:4) The Bible implies that this suspicion is not natural in man - it is the voice of the serpent, and therefore can be cured. This is precisely what St Paul says: 'Brothers, we, in the name of Christ, are ambassadors: through us it is God himself who exhorts. We beseech you in the name of Christ: be reconciled to God'. And what has God done to remove this distrust from our hearts? The apostle continues: "He who knew no sin, God made sin for our sake" (2 Cor 5:21). Jesus did not know sin; on the contrary, as we read in the letter to the Philippians, Jesus made himself obedient (Phil 2:8), and always remained confident, even in suffering and death. That is why he teaches men this trust and reveals that Di is all love and forgiveness: he is Mercy. By an unbelievable paradox, because of this revelation Jesus was considered a blasphemer, treated as a sinner and executed as a cursed man (cf. Deut 21:23). The hatred and blindness of men came upon him and the Father let it happen, because this was the only way for us to experience first hand how far "the Lord is jealous for his land and moves with compassion for his people" as the prophet Joel states. Jesus faced the sin of men, violence, hatred, the rejection of a God who is Love, and on the cross he appears how far the horror of human sin reaches and how far the gentleness and forgiveness of God reaches. And it is precisely from this contemplation that our conversion, what Paul calls 'justification', can arise. "They will turn their eyes to him whom they have pierced," we read in the book of the prophet Zechariah (Zech 12:10), taken up by John (Jn 19:37). In the dying Jesus who forgives his executioners, we discover the very face of God ("He who has seen me has seen the Father" Jn 14:9) and, thanks to him, we are reconciled by God. The task of the baptised is to proclaim and bear witness to this love, in the school of Paul who cries out: "We are ambassadors of Christ", a mission that involves each one of us. This short text closes with a quotation from the prophet Isaiah "At the favourable time I have heard you

and on the day of salvation I have succoured you" who spoke to the exiles in Babylon, announcing to them that the hour of salvation had come. While Israel had to announce deliverance, because false images of God imprison the hearts of men, Jesus Christ entrusted his Church with the mission of announcing the remission of sins to the world.

*From the Gospel according to Matthew (6:1-6. 16-18)

Today's Gospel contains two short excerpts from the Sermon on the Mount, which occupies chapters 5-7 of Matthew's Gospel. The whole discourse revolves around a central core that is the Lord's Prayer (Mt 6:9-13), the prayer that gives meaning to everything else. This indicates that the exhortations given here are not mere moral advice, but lead to the heart of faith, and the message is as follows: all our actions must be rooted in the discovery that God is Father. Prayer, almsgiving and fasting are therefore not just religious practices, but paths to bring us closer to God-the-Father: Fasting means learning to shift the centre away from ourselves, and with prayer we centre our lives on God, while almsgiving opens our hearts to our brothers and sisters. Three times Jesus uses expressions that invite us not to be like those who love to show off. Religious practices were certainly of great importance in the Jewish society of the time and the risk was to place too much value on outward displays as some did. Matthew recalls Jesus' rebukes to those who cared more about the length of their fringes than about mercy and faithfulness (Matthew 23:5ff). Here, Jesus invites his disciples to a true inner purification because to be truly righteous one must avoid acting in front of men in order to be admired by them. Righteousness was a fundamental theme for believers and in the Beatitudes, Jesus mentions it twice: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied." (Mt 5:6) "Blessed are those persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Mt 5:10) But in biblical language, true justice does not consist in accumulating religious practices, however noble they may be. True righteousness is to be in harmony with God's plan as we already read in Genesis: "Abraham believed the Lord, and therefore the Lord counted him righteous." (Gen 15:6). Therefore, not a righteousness that is self-righteousness, but a deep harmony and agreement with God.  Prayer, fasting, almsgiving become three ways to live justice: In prayer, we allow God to mould us according to his plan: "Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. "And precisely for this reason, Jesus recommends: "When you pray, do not waste words as the pagans do; your Father knows what you need even before you ask him. (Mt 6:7-8) Fasting is along the same lines: it frees us from the illusion of what we believe is essential to be happy, but which often ends up imprisoning us. Jesus himself, fasting in the desert, answered Satan: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." (Mt 4:4) Almsgiving is the fruit of our walk of righteousness, because it makes us merciful. It is no coincidence that the Greek word for almsgiving comes from the same root as eleison ("have mercy") and to give alms means to open one's heart to compassion. Since God loves all his children, there can be no true justice without social justice. And we see this clearly in the Last Judgement: "Come, ye blessed of my Father... For I was hungry and you gave me food... "And at the end: "The righteous shall go to eternal life. (Mt 25:31-46). Ultimately those who flaunt are at odds with true righteousness because they display a subtle form of spiritual selfishness, a way of remaining self-centred. And the real tragedy is that this attitude closes our hearts to the Spirit's sanctifying action.

+Giovanni D'Ercole