Remember you are dust

I remember my twenty-first birthday well.  It fell of Ash Wednesday.  The day that celebrates entry into adulthood with all the joy and triumph of youth began for me with the words “remember that you are dust and that to dust you will return” as a priest imposed ashes on my forehead at 6:30am Mass.  I recalled the lesson of that day some weeks ago when I realized that once again my birthday would fall on Ash Wednesday.

At the peak of my youth, my twenty-first birthday, the Church asked me to repent and to seek the Lord since one day I would die and return to dust.  The Church reminded me that that the invincibility of youth is certainly vincible.  I was reminded that all things pass away and that what truly matters is having your heart prepared to meet the Lord.  My father had been diagnosed with a brain tumor one month before my birthday and he would return to dust within the year.  I experienced (though not personally) the words of Ash Wednesday during my twenty-first year.

I learned that a life well lived keeps a healthy balance between sentiments of joyful triumph and limitation.  Jesus calls us to be of good cheer because he has overcome the world while Saint Paul reminds us that in Christ we can do all things.  These passages call us to be joyful and to maintain a triumphant hope for the future.  Yet Scripture reminds us of our limitations teaching us, “watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” and “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  We are limited not only because one day we will die, but also because our sinfulness limits us.

We cannot live our lives always afraid of death, nor can we live our lives as if death will never come.  We cannot live our lives always downcast due to our sins and failings, nor can we live our lives as if we have no sins and failings.  To strike a balance, we must always remember that we are beloved children of God, passionately loved by a Father who longs for us to spend eternity with Him.

Saint Paul writes to the Philippians, “for to me life is Christ, and death is gain.”  This is the lesson of Ash Wednesday that I learned on my twenty-first birthday.  Life is full of joys and triumphs because we encounter Christ in it, yet we must never forget that death will come and that death is gain because only through it we encounter Christ in all his glory.  The Church invites us to meditate on this during the next forty days of Lent, to repent, to mend our ways, so that our death will surely be a gain.