Ash Wednesday & 1st Sunday in Lent – Year C
March 5 & 9, 2025
Context
This Ash Wednesday we step into Lent, 40 days of companionship with Jesus to the cross. This annual pilgrimage is becoming an increasingly rare but much-needed tonic in an age where the line between genuine self-reflection and virtue signalling is increasingly blurred.
In the Gospel for Ash Wednesday (Matt. 6:1-6, 16-21), Jesus tells us not to put on a public show when we pray, fast, or give. He’s warning us against the temptation of becoming spiritual “actors” — the original meaning of “hypocrites” — who perform for the crowd.
Crowds are notoriously fickle, shaping our desires and locking us into roles we can’t seem to escape. We become puppets of their desire, craving their approval. Jesus’ remedy? He urges His disciples to take a break and check themselves into a detox center for the heart. He tells them, “go into your room and shut the door.” This isn’t a reprimand; it’s an invitation to step offstage and stop curating our personal brand, trying to prove our worth to whichever crowd we most esteem.
Lent is perhaps the last remaining religiously sanctioned and culturally recognized treatment for those of us who are addicted to our own goodness project. May our weary souls be open to its healing.
Question
What is it like to imagine that our greatest "sin" this season is not wrongdoing per se, but the exhausting need to appear good? How might Lent liberate us from that burden?
Expand the rows below for more resources for Ash Wednesday and the First Sunday in Lent.
Gospel Lectionary Text
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
6:1 "Beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them, for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.
6:2 "So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.
6:3 But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
6:4 so that your alms may be done in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
6:5 "And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.
6:6 But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
6:16 "And whenever you fast, do not look somber, like the hypocrites, for they mark their faces to show others that they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.
6:17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face,
6:18 so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
6:19 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal,
6:20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.
6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Reflections
Ash Wednesday – Storing Up Treasures
By Susan Okamoto Lane |
What struck me more than Chief Seattle’s monument were the rows of plain, worn cement markers that said only “Unknown.” As I walked slowly among them, I wondered about the people and stories buried here. How did they live? How did they die? How old were they? Did they have families? What did they laugh...
Ash Wednesday: The Sound of the Genuine
By Kris Rocke |
Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Christians worldwide will enter into a heightened time (40 days) of prayer, reflection, and spiritual companionship with Jesus to the Resurrection by way of the cross. Here at Street Psalms, we are grateful for this annual pilgrimage that awakens our heart to its deepest desire. Given the…
Ash Wednesday: Desire
By Kris Rocke |
In the inner room we can finally stop acting. In the inner room we are free of the crowds who so easily rule and run us like puppets. In the inner room, we stop feeding on the unstable and fickle desires of others and learn to borrow our desires from the One who desires us.
Praying Eucharistically - Weekly Homily by James Alison:
Understanding the Bible anew through the Mimetic Theory of René Girard.
Poetry
an excerpt from Sinners Welcome
by Mary Karr
Like poetry, prayer often begins in torment, until the intensity of language forges a shape worthy of both labels: “true” and “beautiful.” (Only in my deepest prayers does language evaporate, and a wide and wordless silence takes over.)
an excerpt from Sinners Welcome
by Mary Karr
My spiritual advisor at the time was an ex-heroin addict who radiated vigor. Janice had enough street cred for me to say to her, “Fuck that god. Any god who’d want people kneeling and sniveling—”
Janice cut me off. “You don’t do it for God, you asshole,” she said. She told me to try it like an experiment: pray for thirty days, and see if I stayed sober and my life got better.
Franz Wright states my starting point nicely in “Request” here in its entirety from The Beforelife:
Please love me
and I will play for you
this poem
upon a guitar I made
out of cardboard and black threads
when I was ten years old.
Love me or else.
I started kneeling to pray morning and night - spitefully at first, in bitter pout. The truth is, I still very much fancied the idea that glugging down Jack Daniels would stay my turmoil, even though doing so had resulted in my driving in to stuff with more molecular density than I. But I had an illiterate baby to whom many vows had been made, and - whatever whiskey’s virtues - it had gotten hard to maintain my initial argument that drinking made me a calmer mom to my colicky infant. Whiskey was killing me, which - in those early days when I was jonesing for a drink - didn’t seem such a bad idea for either my kid or me, given my ugly disposition.
Ergo, I prayed—not with the misty-eyed glee I’d seen on Song of Bernadette, nor with the butch conviction of Charlton Heston playing Moses in the Ten Commandments. I prayed with belligerence, at least once with a middle finger aimed at the light fixture—my own small unloaded bazooka pointed at the Almighty. I said, "Keep me sober," in the morning. I said, "Thanks," at night.
Call to Prayer
Ash Wednesday's call to prayer comes from the Christ Mystery prayer and includes a story from our global community that helps ground us in the everyday reality of those we serve.
Christ in me…me in Christ…Christ in all…all is well.
Christ in me…me in Christ…Christ in all…all is one.
Christ in me…me in Christ…Christ in all…all is Christ.
All is Christ…all is one…all is well…in Christ.
Listen to the complete prayer below:
Gospel Lectionary Text
Luke 4:1-13
4:1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness,
4:2 where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.
4:3 The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread."
4:4 Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone.'"
4:5 Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.
4:6 And the devil said to him, "To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please.
4:7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours."
4:8 Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"
4:9 Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here,
4:10 for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,'
4:11 and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"
4:12 Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
4:13 When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
Reflections
Symbolic Universe
By Kris Rocke |
He was asked to lead a seminar for urban youth. A young lady walked in just as it was about to start and asked what the topic would be. When he told her it was about how to survive in the city, she immediately replied, “Oh, that’s easy! You only need three things..."
No Buyer’s Remorse
By Jenna Smith |
This Sunday, we find ourselves at the start of lent. The spiritual sobriety of this season feels very reflective of the sobriety of Jesus’ actions during his temptation in the desert.
Praying Eucharistically - Weekly Homily by James Alison:
Understanding the Bible anew through the Mimetic Theory of René Girard.
Poetry
Prayer
by Galway Kinnell
Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that.
Denial
by David Lehman
I am not hungover.
I am not hungover.
Not hungover am I.
Am I hungover? Not!
Hungover am I not.
Am hungover? Not I.
I hungover not am.
I am hungover. (Not).
Not I am hungover.
hungover I am not.
Am I not hungover?
Not am I hungover.
I not am hungover.
Hungover not am I.
Limits of Longing
by Rilke
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.
Call to Prayer
During Lent, the call to prayer features the Street Psalms Prayer of Discernment and includes a story from our global community that helps ground us in the everyday reality of those we serve.
Let us pray.
Gracious God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of Life, have mercy on us. Reveal yourself in all things, to all things, and through all things. Grant us the gift of becoming a community of the incarnation, mystery of Word made flesh, who sees and celebrates Good News in hard places. Give us the tongue of a teacher to sustain the weary with the Word, and free leaders from all walks of life to love their city and seek its peace with the Gospel of Jesus.
Listen to the complete prayer below:
