I gave this reflection late this afternoon at an Ash Wednesday service. Then I smeared ashes on many foreheads.
The readings for Ash Wednesday are here.
Hypocrites – we all hate them. Nobody likes a hypocrite, such as those whom Jesus criticizes in today’s Gospel reading. Whether it’s a cop who breaks the law, or a climate activist who drives a gas guzzler, or a clergyman who violates his vows, there are few people in the world who exasperate us more than hypocrites who claim to be virtuous but in fact are no better, and maybe even worse, than the rest of us.
What I suppose we’d like is for our public figures and leaders to be who we wish ourselves to be: people who actually do what they exhort others to do; people whose actions are aligned with their words. We’d like their outward face to be an accurate reflection of their true, inner selves.
Of course, it’s possible that hypocrites are really no better than the rest of us because none of us is perfect, either. We’d all like others to think we’re good people, but we know deep down that we’re not good all the way through – we know our inner hearts have veins and pockets of darkness and sin running through them.
What we long for is to be people who are much-admired these days: we want to be authentic. We want to be able to go out into the world as our true selves; and also, we want those true selves to be good and pure and admirable.
Why is that so hard? Why do we fall short of being who we wish we could be?
As it happens, our Catholic church has a good answer to those questions, and this season of Lent is a good time to reflect on what the church tells us. Here is what our tradition teaches us: we are not really complete and whole as human beings until we are in a relationship – that is, a relationship with God. We can’t become healed, whole, cleansed humans all by ourselves, because God didn’t make us to be that way. God made us with the expectation that he’d be a part of our lives, as a companion, a teacher, a friend and a king. That is why he walked in the garden with Adam and Eve, before they turned away from God and fell.
Even though Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, God had a plan to reconcile the human race with himself. But it didn’t involve welcoming us back to the garden. Instead, it consisted of his sending his Son Jesus as one of us. And it’s Jesus to whom are invited to draw closer during Lent.
If we live our lives as though Jesus never came to us, and as though God is not right beside us, or even right within us, then we’re not really being authentically human. We might even say, We’d be living a lie. And living a lie means, almost by definition, that we’d be – ahem - hypocrites.
If you come to this service every year, you may have heard me say this before: that very first line in our first reading gets to the heart of our call to action during this season of Lent. “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart.” Return to God: there is our path to inner healing and wholeness.
The church’s Lenten tradition offers three spiritual paths to return to God. Those three traditional paths are prayer, fasting and almsgiving. I heartily recommend any or all of them. But that list of three ways may not exhaust the possibilities. There are other ways to return to God during this season: perhaps by serving others. Perhaps there is a relationship in your life, with a family member or another loved one, that needs repair, and this season of Lent may be a good time for you to reach out to try to reconcile with that person. There can be many ways of returning to God this season.
If prayer or fasting or almsgiving work for you, then by all means, embrace one of them. If you have a different idea, go for it. But please – please - pick a lane. Choose one of the ways that leads you to God. Let this Lent be a time of healing and wholeness for you by drawing closer to God. We’re never truly whole and authentic until we’re in a loving relationship with him.
"If we live our lives as though Jesus never came to us, and as though God is not right beside us, or even right within us, then we’re not really being authentically human."
ReplyDeleteDoes this mean Buddhists or Jews or atheists cannot be authentically human?
It certainly means that I who profess to be Christian can either follow what was said in the paragraph you wuoted or it is all window dressing and I am a hypocrite. Is it declasse to call people in a Christian church to BE and ACT as Christians? We are entering a time and space where being nice to other people isn’t going to be enough. We may have to be imprisoned or die for others, and they may be Buddhists or Jews or atheists or Muslims.
DeleteStanley, totally off topic, but the Guardian had a gallery of soviet-era Polish movie posters for American films that made it thru the censors. I love pulp art, and this stuff is very surreal and intense!
Deletehttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2025/mar/06/give-it-a-polish-classic-film-posters-with-a-twist-in-pictures
I certainly have no problem with a message to Catholics telling them that if they profess Catholic beliefs but do not strive to live according to those belief, they are being "inauthentic" Catholics and possibly hypocrites.
DeleteThe question in my mind is what does it mean to be authentically human? It strikes me that an authentically human person does not necessarily imply goodness or virtue.
Assuming you are referring to political developments, Trump got 60% of white Catholic voters and 80% of Evangelical Christian voters. (And I see Bishop Barron on X blamed the Democrats for treating Trump's address as something different in kind from past presidential addresses or State of the Union messages.)
Thanks for the link, Jean. Quite a different take on these movies, almost all of which I’ve seen. Oppression seems to spark creativity, one example being Jazz music.
DeleteDavid, no doubt an interesting question. I would say acting and speaking and being in tune with one’s beliefs would make one authentic. Is Trump a hypocrite? He really doesn’t believe anything. I suppose his pretending to believe is hypocritical. Was Hitler a hypocrite? He pretty much laid out his goals in MK. I never actually read MK but I’ve thought of doing so to compare him to Trump. I think Hitler had actual beliefs. For me, authenticity means acting, thinking and speaking without the domination of the ego. I’ve achieved that at times but not consistently. I think both religion and science have helped me in that regard. I am not purely Stanley-centric. I also consider myself sinful and one of the things that make me so is being an underachiever relative to my gifts.
DeleteI guess we can quibble about the definition of the term "authentic". As I understand Christian anthropology, I don't think Donald Trump and Adolph Hitler is/was authentically human, if "authentic" encompasses the notion of "in its fullness". I don't suppose either has/had a relationship with God, and so had cut themselves off from the wellspring of our authenticity.
DeleteGood thoughts, Jim.
ReplyDeleteIt is weird, but the Ash Wednesday Mass in the evening here is the best attended service of the year. That includes Christmas and Easter. There were people packed in the choir loft, the side chapels, standing in the aisles the length of the church, and in the vestibule. If it hadn't been so cold they would have been outside on the steps. Go figure.
Funny story, we recently attended the vigil service for an elderly deacon in our town who passed away. One of the things the pastor said was that, "Deacon Art made the best ashes in the archdiocese." To be clear, we are not talking about cremation. It was about his recipe for turning burnt palms into ashes for ash Wednesday. They were fine, not gritty, made a nice neat cross and didn't flake off on people's clothes. Said the priest to the deacons who were present, "I hope you guys got his recipe." (Of course a lot of other things were said about Deacon Art's 90 years and his service to the church and community.)
Something new to us this year was that the EMHCs also were helping to distribute ashes.
DeleteRe: Ash Wednesday being the best-attended: yes, same for us, at least compared to Sunday mass.
DeleteFWIW, since the church re-opened after the COVID shutdown several years ago, we have counted attendance at all our Sunday and holy day services, so we have an idea of whether we are growing, shrinking or staying the same. Our experience so far has been gradual growth.
For Sunday masses, it's unusual for an individual mass exceed 400 attendees. But at the Ash Wednesday service I led, the reported attendance was 586 - and I am pretty sure it was actually higher than that. People were walking through the doors from beginning to end. The service takes place at 4:30 pm, which is convenient for parents picking up kids from daycare or after-school care, and for people leaving work.
Interesting tidbits from my Anglo-Saxon group: ashes were sprinkled over the head, not smeared on the forehead. Ashes may have been made from yew branches carried the previous Palm Sunday cuz no palm trees in England. Yew was sacred from pagan times and also a symbol of strength and had some medicinal properties, so possibly why that was a substitute. Finally, the run up to Lent was called Cheese Week. Everybody ate up their cheese because it was verboten in Lent.
ReplyDeleteRe Katherine's comments: think Ash Wednesday resonates as a time of reflection and sobriety. The frenzy of Christmas/New Year/Superbowl is over, the credit card balance is bloated and everybody's still carrying a few extra pounds from the fruitcake.
At my age, I'm not sure what to do with Lent. I have daily reminders in my physical self that that cold slab awaits fairly soon. Fasting never did anything for me. I pray and repent daily, I am trying to knit my yarn stash up for the shelter people.
I don't know what people mean when they talk about stuff being "authentic." Sounds like that old 1960s encounter group buzz word "meaningful," but with commercial overtones. "Get your authentic Lebanese flat bread here! Accept no fake substitutes."
I don’t mind “ authentic” when referring to cuisine (even when it’s far from” authentic”) but I grimace when it’s used to refer to personality ( “she’s SO authentic”), or in advice to “live an authentic “ life etc.
DeleteThere are buzzwords that annoy me but eventually they go away. Authenticity is one of those - overused and now without much meaning. In the business of my major client for ten years - defense, intelligence and national security - I groaned when seeing or hearing the phrase “trusted partner”- as in “we are a trusted partner of the IC ( Intelligence Community)” or DOD etc. It was overused so every contractor turned out to be a “ trusted partner” .
ReplyDeleteJean there are palm trees in England mostly in the southern coast - Cornwall, Devon, Isle of Wight, the Scilly Isles, and even Wales. We went to an England frequently during a 50: year period because my husband had business there for the US Navy. After his meetings we would pick different areas of the country to visit. We saw almost the entire country over the years. He was a civilian with a very small consulting firm but traveled with an Admiral as an advisor. On one trip we went to Cornwall in November and were shocked to see bright flowers blooming and palm trees. Those areas are warmer due to the course of the Gulf stream. There are also palm trees in Scotland for the same reason. But I don’t know if there are enough local palm trees to supply the whole country with palms n Palm Sunday.
All's I know is what my trusted partners in the Old English group post from primary sources.
DeleteI traveled around England and Scotland when I was at Cambridge. Didn't see no palm trees. Lots of fields of wildflowers around Cambridge, esp poppies, often growing with nettles. Bad place for a picnic with your Canadian boyfriend. Ouch!
Possibly the Anglo-Saxons preferred the yew because of its pagan associations with the cult of Baldur, a Norse God with a resurrection story who was popular in some areas.
We have native cactus in a tiny patch of natural prairie in Newaygo County Michigan!
I have read that pussy willow branches were used in eastern Europe for Palm Sunday. I suppose it's whatever you have available.
DeleteA little palm trivia: the palms grown in the UK are varieties which have at least some tolerance for cooler temperatures than the more tropical varieties: https://palmcentre.co.uk/garden-inspiration/top-five-hardy-palms-for-the-uk/
Most of the palms used for Palm Sunday in the US are grown in Florida, the Cabbage Palmetto variety.
Odin was well known in Anglo Saxon England. He hung himself on a yew tree for nine days before coming back to life. His son Baldur, "the bleeding god," was also killed and foretold to return after Ragnarok (End of the World). Jesus's crucifixion (the God who died on a tree) reverbed somewhat with these familiar stories. In vernacular Bible stories Jesus is a hero kingnfollowed around by his knights. So not too surprising that the yew was selected to be carried on Good Friday.
DeleteJean, were you a student at Cambridge?
DeleteJust a summer program many decades ago. One of my English profs set me up with a university exchange program in Tudor England. Got to see, among many other things, the English manor houses with the "priest holes" that crypto-Catholics used for hiding Jesuits during the Reformation.
Delete... program ON Tudor England. Sounds like Iike I got sent there in the Way Back Machine.
DeleteI once got a gift of authentic cologne, echte Kölnwasser. “Authentic” isn’t too popular around here but “echt” sounds cool and maybe “naprawda” in Polish. I wonder if they psychobabble people to death in these other languages. Would “echt” or “naprawda” get a roll of the eyes from a German or Pole respectively?
DeleteInteresting question! Don't know the answer, but what gets a lot of eyerolls are Americanisms and computer lingo (ex, LOL) that creep into other languages, including British English.
DeleteJean, that’s wonderful. I knew you had traveled a lot in England but didn’t realize that you had been a summer student in Cambridge. We loved Cambridge and have never forgotten wandering in to the Kings College Chapel just in time for evensong. They will be putting on a concert at the Washington National Cathedral on April 6. It will be live-streamed. Since it’s at 6 pm we can’t attend in person, but will watch the livestream. The livestream requires registration, but it’s free. Donations are welcome of course.
ReplyDeletehttps://cathedral.org/music/concerts-recitals/
The university has a lot of interesting Tudor architecture. Spent a long time at King's "reading" the stained glass with binoculars. Went punting. Stayed at Madingley Hall just outside Cambridge (also built in Tudor times) with other international students. The Dutch girls were staying on in the fall and bought cheap bikes from a place in town. They were generous about lending them out to the rest of us. My favorite thing was to just ride around the back roads talking to locals--farmers, church ladies, vicars. The rural people in the country were just lovely. Invited us to see their barns, animals, churches, told us lots of local history, had us in their houses for tea. Nice memories.
DeleteJean, that's interesting and cool that you got to spend time in Cambridge.
ReplyDeleteThe closest I've been to there are some Britbox shows. We liked the Inspector Lewis series (which come to think of it was actually Oxford). Both Oxford and Cambridge are rated among the safest cities, but there was a murder there every episode. Scenery was pretty, and lovely ancient buildings though.
I have a niece who lives in Cambridge. But that's Cambridge, MA.
DeleteI like to think that the experience was not wasted on me.
DeleteJean, it sounds like a magical summer and wonderful memories.
DeleteI’m sure you treasure your time there the way I treasure my memories of being a poor American student in Paris, also arranged for me by a college professor.
Katherine, our youngest did his graduate work at Oxford. I had hoped he would go to Cambridge but they didn’t have the “ right” program for him. But I fell in love with Oxford too after visiting him there several times. He told us about the Inspector Lewis series because the first week he was there they were filming at his college ( Trinity) He had never heard of the show and asked us if we had. We hadn’t, but became loyal fans. We eventually became quite familiar with the city and loved seeing all the buildings and places we had seen whenever we watched the show. They have guidebooks for tourists to go to the sites in the TV series. Our son was approached once by an American couple who overheard his Yank accent. They had gone to Oxford specifically to do the Inspector Lewis tour. Many people take Harry Potter tours also. One thing I loved about Oxford were all of the many real bookstores on every block. There are no real bookstores in the suburbs in DC anymore - Barnes and Noble. You have to go downtown to get independent bookstores with character., I’m quite sure that Jean spent a lot of time poking around the amazing bookstores in Cambridge too. When she wasn’t punting on the Cam with her Canadian boyfriend!
I was reading that if you want to attend Oxford or Cambridge, you can't apply to both of them. You have to pick one or the other. I suppose otherwise students would hedge their bets and apply to both. So by this policy the institutions cut down by half the applications they have to wade through.
DeleteI wonder if they still have any single sex colleges there, or if they are all coed now.
According to Google Oxford no longer has any single sex college, but Cambridge does. Also the restriction on applying to both universities is only for undergraduate students, not graduate students. Our son only applied to Oxford because it offered a couple of programs that he was interested in but Cambridge didn’t. I remember English friends talking about their children “sitting for the Oxbridge exam.”. It’s a bit confusing to me but apparently undergraduate applicants take the same exam ( like an SAT I guess) but may only apply to one of the universities. Once there, they don’t “ major” in Old English Literature ( or whatever) they “read” literature, or law, or biology. The undergrad course is three years. The Masters courses my son took were one year each. So he earned two Masters degrees in two years. In the US he would have spent two years on one grad degree program - for the same money at our state university. Originally he applied for only one program, but after being there they told him that students enrolled in a few selected programs, including his, could enroll for a second degree in a special program with a discounted tuition. Sort of BOGO masters programs.
DeleteThe American Cemetery was a short walk from Madingley Hall. The bodies of the American servicemen buried there were sent home at the end of the war, but the original markers and cemetery are kept up as a memorial. One of the Church Ladies in Madingley took us down to see it. It was quite moving to see something like this in a foreign country.
Deletehttps://www.abmc.gov/about/cambridge-american-cemetery/
Jean that’s the way I felt when in France and seeing the American cemetery in Normandy.
DeleteEqually moving was standing on the cliffs above Omaha Beach, with German pillboxes every 100 yards or so, and truly realizing that the Normandy invasion on D - Day was pretty much a suicide mission. Our troops piled out of the landing craft in the water to slog their way through the water to the beach while the German troops shot at them like shooting ducks in a small pond with automatic weapons. Not even the WWII movies convey the feeling of horror that standing on those cliffs in the silence, on a beautiful summer day, looking down at the beach below, and realizing that our soldiers were literally sitting ducks,
Yesterday I read that the idiot running the DOD has ordered that photos of the Enola Gay that show the name of the plane that launched the horrors of the nuclear era be removed if you can read the word Gay on it in the photo. Now I’m wondering if they will paint over it in the NASA Hazy Museum - an enormous aircraft museum near Dulles airport, that has an incredible display of historic planes and spacecraft. We were there at Christmas with our son and grandkids. It was mobbed with families.
https://www.si.edu/museums/air-and-space-museum-udvar-hazy-center
I gasped when going into a new section, looking up, and seeing Enola Gay painted on the side of the plane above me. I literally got a shiver down my spine.
He has also ordered the removal 24,000 photos of the first minorities to receive medals for heroism , or be the first in our previously segregated military in various jobs, making history from DOD websites, displays in any DOD facility. His first firings of Joint Chiefs the first week or so were two - the African American General who was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the female Admiral who was the Chief of the Navy, leaving only white, male Chiefs. Although trumps was racism obvious from the start, many Republicans denied it - because they were trying to deny their own racism.
Adm Franchetti's dismissal enraged Raber, a Navy vet. By all accounts, she had sterling admin and strategic qualifications plus many years practical experience at sea as ship and fleet commander. Her rise to head the Navy was not contoversial, and there was never a whiff of scandal or incompetence. Some sailors who had served under her protested her removal. She was diagnosed with and treated for early stage breast cancer in 2024, and that likely flagged her as "prone to female problems" in Hegseth's teensy little brain.
DeleteApparently the new Chair of the Joint
DeleteChiefs was chosen because he doesn’t support “ woke” initiatives, specifically DEI. He is under qualified and needs a waiver from the basic qualifications for the job.
I don’t know if they’ve replaced the Admiral yet. Guessing a lot of those senior male officers have been treated for prostate cancer. Maybe they can’t do the job because of their male health issues and should be fired.
Adm James Kilby is acting CNO to replace Franchetti. I don't know anything about him. Except he's a man. And he's white.
DeleteWith Hegseth in charge, I’m pretty sure whatever good or evil the US military can achieve will be a thing of the past. While the ideological fool obsesses about DEI and LGBTQ, he should be wondering about how much and how fast he can get ammo manufactured. Also, artillery shells are supposed to detonate at or over the target, not in the breach of the cannon. I wonder how safe a recruit will be when he pulls that lanyard.
Delete