Ash Wednesday, 2/10/16: 6:30 AM, 8:00 AM, and 7:00 PM

I have someone to introduce to you, my friend George (at which time I will pull a skull out of a box). Now lest you be worried, George is not a real skull but is a fake and is made of Styrofoam. I bought him years ago as part of post-Halloween closeout sale at Johnny Brock’s Dungeon. I keep him on the corner of my desk in the rectory. I keep him in such a prominent place because he reminds me of something I tend to forget: that someday I will die.

I have often said that I like reading the comics in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch not only because of their humor, not only because of their creativity, but also because of the wisdom they contain. As I have mentioned before, one of my favorites that I clipped out of the Post-Dispatch years ago is from a comic strip entitled “B.C.” by the late cartoonist Johnny Hart. Again as I have mentioned before, one of Johnny Hart’s themes in that strip was to take a word and give it a very interesting definition. In this case, he took the word “Birth” and defined it as “The leading cause of death,” meaning that we’re all going to be like a real life George someday. The New Testament letter to the Hebrews (13:14) puts that same reality this way, we have here no lasting city, but we seek the one that is to come. St. Paul puts that same thought this way when he writes to the people of Philippi (3:20), Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we also await a savior,the Lord Jesus Christ. In the heart of our hearts, we know that, but it’s so easy to forget that fact or to be distracted from thinking about it. Ash Wednesday, our first day of Lent, reminds us of that fact with its word, Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Again, in the heart of our hearts, we all know that we are going to die which is why we buy life insurance to take care of life after we die. In a similar way, there is spiritual life insurance symbolized by this little tripod. A tripod has three legs, all of which are needed. A tripod with only one or two legs extended can’t stand and will fall down, so too with the tripod of spiritual life insurance. That spiritual life insurance tripod is comprised of three words: Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving. By prayer, I mean taking time to remember God’s love for us, telling God that we’re grateful for that love, and always being in contact with the God who is always in contact with us. However, prayer by itself will fall down unless it is accompanied by other two words of that tripod, fasting and almsgiving. By fasting, I mean creating and feeling a hole in our lives. By giving up whatever we give up, be it TV, soda, the Internet, candy, and the like, we remember how we are empty without the greatest gift of all, our relationship with God. By almsgiving, I mean sharing what we have with others which reminds us of our connection with people who don’t have those things, people whom we are called to love.

With Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving, the tripod of our relationship with God is complete, and our relationship with the God who loves us and our relationship with those whom God calls us to love is strong and will always be secure just like this tripod. Even more, with the tripod of Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving , the security of our spiritual life insurance policy will always be strong and can never be doubted, even when wesomeday are like a real George.