It’s incredible how popular Ash Wednesday is. The simple ritual of placing ashes on people’s heads captures the imagination of the whole world. In the days of a thoroughly Christian West, our lives were constantly punctuated by these sorts of rituals, but this, along with Palm Sunday, to which it is so closely connected, is practically the only one left. Perhaps it is because even non-believers can’t help but recognize that they are mortal, limited, and even sinful. But for how long will this be true?

Already eighty years ago, Pope Pius XII lamented that, “Perhaps the greatest sin in the world today is that men have begun to lose the sense of sin. Smother that, deaden it … let it not be awakened by any glimpse of the God-man dying on Golgotha’s cross to pay the penalty of sin, and what is there to hold back the hordes of God’s enemy from over-running the selfishness, the pride, the sensuality and unlawful ambitions of sinful man?” Twenty years after Pius XII, in 1966, the scholar Philip Reiff coined the term “therapeutic culture,” which he predicted would replace the objective moral codes of religions with personal fulfillment, largely under the influence of Freud’s psychoanalysis.

          Ideas have consequences, and sixty years later, I regularly see the consequences of what Pope Pius XII and Reiff observed in first confessions. It’s not the normal experience, but from time to time I encounter children who don’t know what they’re doing, and I try to help them: “What are the sins you need to confess?” Blank stare. “Sins?” “Yeah, the things you’ve done wrong.” Blank stare. “What have you done wrong that you need to tell God sorry for?” Confused look.

          There are growing numbers of children who don’t have a conceptual category for moral failure. These children are the victims of what a more contemporary thinker calls “therapeutic parenting,” an attempt to make parents into their child’s therapists that often replaces moral categories of right and wrong with therapeutic categories based in feelings. But it’s not just children. All of us have imbibed a moral determinism that sees us as the victims of historical and environmental forces rather than free human beings who make real moral choices, and need to face the consequences of those choices in punishment. “It’s my family of origin,” “it’s how I was raised,” etc.

          Ash Wednesday lifts the lid on sin so effectively because it illustrates what St. Paul tells us today: “Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin, death, and thus death came to all men, inasmuch as all sinned.” Death exists in the world because of sin. Its continued existence, despite such incredible advances in medicine, is the ultimate proof of the reality of sin. Perhaps this is the key to Ash Wednesday’s enduring popularity and fascination: “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” We can deny so much, but not quite that.

          On Ash Wednesday, we saw the humble prayer of the prophets, “Perhaps [God] will again relent and leave behind him a blessing.” This “perhaps,” we saw, is a strange way to begin Lent, seeming to wonder whether God will in fact forgive. But this “perhaps” reflects not uncertainty about God’s loving and merciful nature, but a humility on our part, a posture of openness to the way that He wants to intervene, to what He wants to do: “Here am I, Lord, with my hopes and longings. I present to you this humble effort at penance, the little I can do in comparison with the immensity of the guilt of my sins. What you will do with it, I know not. But today, I choose to trust in You.”

          In the Responsorial Psalm today, we sing the greatest song of repentance in the Scriptures, Psalm 51, the masterpiece of King David. The great David, commended so often for his fidelity to the Lord, had spied a beautiful woman bathing on the roof of the house next to his palace, seduced her, had her husband murdered, and took her as his own wife. Reproved by the prophet Nathan, David repented with his whole heart, and as act of repentance, composed these moving verses: “Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness; in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense,” asking not only to be re-admitted into the Lord’s presence, but trusting that God’s mercy is so powerful that his offense can be “wiped out.”

          David’s moving words have taken on an added mystique in being set to some of the most beautiful music in the history of the Church. They formed the conclusion to the legendary office of Tenebrae on the evening of Good Friday, and one particular setting, by Gregorio Allegri, was sung every year in the Vatican. Legend has it that the piece was under pontifical embargo until a precocious 14-year-old Mozart heard it and later transcribed the piece from memory. While historians have poked some holes in that story, the piece’s mystique remains, in large part because of the evocative story that the Miserere conveys. Those who were present at our evening Mass on Ash Wednesday were blessed to hear that legendary music sung by our parish choir (and I’ve heard they might reprise it on Good Friday!).

          David’s psalm of repentance is so inspiring because it moves from the bold request for the obliteration of his sin, to his humble acknowledgement of being a sinner, to the hope that dawns in the Lord’s forgiveness. “Against you only have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight” – he acknowledges that all sin is ultimately directed against God. “A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me.” Don’t just forgive me; make me the kind of person who won’t sin again! “Give me back the joy of your salvation, and a willing spirit sustain in me … that the bones you have crushed may revive.” God is right to punish, and in some sense we must be “crushed” to be healed, to return to that place of joy in being saved by the Lord. “O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise.” Forgiveness moves us to praise God, to rejoice in salvation.

          Now we can see why Christ enters the experience of temptation in His human nature. He is bringing about what David longed for centuries before: “A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me.” Christ experiences temptation in His human nature to perfect that nature in which we share, to create a clean heart for us who will be baptized into Him, to renew a steadfast spirit in those who can truly be shaken by the Enemy’s wiles. St. Paul tells us that, “Through the obedience of the one, the many are made righteous.”

          I’m not a big advice-giver in confession, in part because I want to be sure not to fall into that therapeutic mentality. So often I just tell people, “Thanks be to God for this new start today! For your penance …”

          The reality, though, is that God’s mercy and forgiveness, especially communicated to us through the Sacrament of Penance or Confession, is not just the chance to start over. St. Paul tells us: “But the gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one, the many died, how much more did the grace of God and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ overflow for the many.”

          “The gift is not like the transgression.” God’s mercy is not just a reset button. It is not a do-over. It is not another try. It is an obliteration of sin. It is an overflowing of God’s grace and love. The forgiven sinner is closer to God than ever before, more deeply caught up in God’s loving embrace.

          This season of Lent is meant to be an austere time, to bring us face to face with the reality of who we are and how much we need the Lord. We’re leaning into that sense of austerity this year by singing the entrance antiphons rather than a processional hymn. These are the proper texts of the Mass, the ones chosen by Holy Mother Church for the entrance procession each Sunday in Lent. They have been sung at Mass for centuries and connect us to Catholics throughout history and throughout the world. They set them theme of the Mass and emphasize what is most important. Today we hear: “When he calls to me, I will answer him; I will rescue him and honor him.” This is God speaking about the repentant sinner. When you call out to beg the Lord’s mercy like David, especially by confessing your sins in confession, He will hear you! He will not only hear you, He will rescue you! Restoring you to grace, He will honor you with the gift that so far exceeds your transgression. He will “give [you] back the joy of your salvation, and a willing spirit [He will] sustain in [you].” He will open your lips, so that your mouth can proclaim His praise.

A healthy sense of sin does not make us pessimists about human nature. It reveals the greatness of God. While the culture of the therapeutic ignores evil’s existence, Christ shows us that He wants to triumph over evil in our lives. If you recognize and repent of sin, He will hear you, He will give you grace to overcome even habitual sin. “For if, by the transgression of [Adam], death came to reign … how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of justification come to reign in life through the one Jesus Christ.”

The Rev. Royce V. Gregerson

Parish Church of Our Lady of Good Hope, Fort Wayne

I Sunday of Lent, A.D. MMXXVI