Homily for Ash Wednesday

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"Don’t be like the hypocrites!" That’s what the Gospel tells us today. But what is a hypocrite? Usually we think of a hypocrite as someone who says one thing and does another. But is there something else to it – is there a little nuance that may get us thinking in a different direction.

As it turns out I just happened to come across the Greek derivative for our word hypocrite. The Greek word hypokrites refers to an actor who performed behind a mask. It refers to someone pretending to be someone he is not. That puts a little different spin on it doesn’t it?

 

Have you seen the movie “The Mask?” Well, in this movie there is a character that lives a life that is … ordinary. He doesn’t have much of a job, never gets the girl, and everyone is on his case, until one night he finds a mask floating in the river. Whenever he puts on the mask he is transformed into this extraverted, cartoonish character who is smooth, who always gets what he’s after and who always gets the girl. But he soon discovers that the Mask brings with it more trouble than it’s worth and so at the end of the movie he throws it back in the river and discovers that the person he was underneath the mask is the person he is meant to be. And with this he finds contentment… oh and he does get the girl.

I wonder how often we pretend to be something we are not. Not because we’re bad but because we’re afraid or lack confidence. The “fake it till ya make it” school of life.

I’m of the opinion that all of us, to one extent or another wear masks. In small and not so small ways there are parts of us that pretend to be something we’re not. We all have something in our lives that we’d like to hide behind a mask.

 

There was a pop psychology book 25 -30 years ago called “Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am.” The answer is pretty simple, because we’re all a little bit afraid that if someone knew the real us; all the little secrets; the feelings; the shame; the guilt and the stuff of life we carry around like litter, that they’d reject us. They wouldn’t love us anymore. We’d be alone and what is worse for a human being than to be alone? And so we wear masks and we pretend to be something we’re not and it still isolates us.

Sometimes we pretend so well that we don’t even see the person we are. The person we are supposed to be. At times we look in the mirror and see the mask and think that’s really us. Maybe we’re afraid we won’t love ourselves if we take the masks off.

The Lord is giving us an opportunity during Lent. To go to Him with our fear of rejection, the fear that we won’t be loved, the fear that we can’t be forgiven or the fear that we can’t face ourselves.

Jesus is whispering softly to us, gently “Take the mask off. Don’t be afraid. I’ll show you the person God your Father created you to be. You don’t have to pretend with me. I will not reject you and I WILL love you – no matter what! I am always with you.”

And that’s what Lent is for us. It doesn’t have to be a time of self-deprivation but a time of renewal. It’s the time that reminds us that God calls us back – always, continually calls us back into that right relationship we were meant to have with Him and each other. It is a time to shed the masks and put on Christ – a time to stop pretending and be authentic. To discover once more that we are people made in the image and likeness of God and to live our lives that way.

Lent is the traditional time in the Church when people who want to become Catholics prepare for the promises and obligations that being a Christian places on them. They study scripture; they make prayer a habit in their lives; they fast as a spiritual exercise; they do the things that will help them change their lifestyles to match the calling they’ve received.

Like those preparing to enter the Church, we too do the same kinds of things during Lent. We pray; fast; go to confession; abstain from meat; give up candy; and do good works not to prepare for our own Baptisms but to renew them. At every Mass on Easter Sunday all of us renew the promises of our baptisms. We renew our pledge to put on Christ and to live as Christ lived so that like Jesus we too can bring life and healing to a world desperate to receive it.

During this Lent let us all go to that hidden room that the Gospel speaks of today and pray with Christ. Let’s ask him to show us our masks and give us the courage to look behind them, see the real person, the person God created us to be – a new creation in Christ.