Pope Francis warned the temptation to allow Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to be taken over by an “illness of appearances” that cares more about earthly than eternal rewards on Ash Wednesday.
The Pope said that the rite of receiving ashes was an “austere sign, which leads us to reflect on the transience of our human condition, ” the homily read by the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin on 2 March. Due to knee pain, Pope Francis had canceled the Mass on Ash Wednesday.
He added that it was “like a medicine that has a bitter taste and yet is effective for curing the illness of appearances, a spiritual illness that enslaves us and makes us dependent on the admiration of others.”
Parolin presided over a live-streamed Ash Wednesday Mass, as well as the blessing and imposition of ashes, in Pope Francis’ place on Wednesday.
“The ashes bespeak the emptiness hiding behind the frenetic quest for worldly rewards,” he said. “They remind us that worldliness is like the dust that is carried away by a slight gust of wind. Sisters and brothers, we are not in this world to chase the wind; our hearts thirst for eternity.”
“Lent,” he underlined, “is the time granted us by the Lord to be renewed, to nurture our interior life and to journey towards Easter, towards the things that do not pass away, towards the reward we are to receive from the Father.”
Pope Francis added that “Lent is also a journey of healing. Not to be changed overnight, but to live each day with a renewed spirit, a different ‘style.’”
Prayer, fasting, and charity, also called almsgiving, are aids to this spiritual healing, he said.
“Purified by the Lenten ashes, purified of the hypocrisy of appearances, they become even more powerful and restore us to a living relationship with God, our brothers and sisters, and ourselves,” he said.