Dear brothers and sisters, the wonderful words we heard in all three readings help us to understand the meaning of this Lenten season that today we solemnly begin with the imposition of ashes.

“Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and tear your hearts and not your garments”, says the Lord. And the prophet Joel continues: “Return to the Lord … gracious and merciful”

The Lenten season has often been considered a time of sadness, sacrifice, penances, mortifications placed under the frowning gaze of a God who almost seems to want to say to everyone: “Beware of you! I’m watching you!”.

Instead, the emphasis is placed by the prophet Joel on the word “Return”, a very important word in the spirituality of Judaism (teshuvà). This word certainly characterizes a movement of repentance, but above all of return, of response.

But return to what? At the source, at the spring, at that inexhaustible well which is the Word of God. Lent is the time of joyful, confident listening. Listening helps us to find our way, to face those temptations of hypocrisy that we bear in our hearts. Lent is a journey of listening to learn how to act like and with Jesus to rediscover our human identity “in the image, after likeness of God”. (Gen 1:26)

The traditional gesture that we will perform today at the end of Mass is the imposition of ashes. In ancient times it was a gesture that was connected to mourning or tragic situations. It was also a practice of the farmers who kept the ash of the fireplace all winter, and then, towards the end of the bad season, spread them on the ground, as fertilizer, to give new energy to the land.

The two ancient meanings of ash are connected to the words that accompany the rite of imposition: “Rembember that you are dust and to dust shall return” and “Repent and believe in the Gospel”. Frankly I prefer the second formula.

The first one recalls the curse of our forefathers after original sin (Gen 3:19) and our human frailty. Of course, we know that our body will become dust and we need to remember that our earthly life is not infinite. However, we are also aware that we are children of God, that our life is eternal, that is, indestructible, capable of overcoming death. This certainty softens the tragic nature of those words.

“Repent and believe in the Gospel” are the first words of Jesus’ preaching (Mk 1:15). Those words are an invitation to change. Jesus does not come to keep the situation as it is, but to transform it: change must be the driving force of the believer’s life. Change of heart or change of mentality orients our existence to the good of the other and help us to adhere to the good news of Jesus. Returning to the agricultural meaning of ashes: receiving ashes on our head means being fertilized, means welcoming the good news of Jesus, the vital element that revives our life, makes us discover new original forms of love. Lent is the right season for love to flourish in new, original, creative forms.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus corrects some practices that were part of the spirituality of the Pharisees but which were often used to get noticed and be praised (giving alms and playing the trumpet, praying in front of people, fasting showing effort). Even in our traditional way of living Lent there is almsgiving, prayer and fasting. Unfortunately we have often interpreted them as sacrifices, penances such as not eating candies or not drinking beer during Lent season. It is praiseworthy giving up something during Lent season but the spirit of Christian fasting is much deeper. We remember that Jesus said: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice”. (Mt 12:7) Mercy directs human being towards the good of brothers and sisters. Sacrifices and penances could focus man on himself, on his own spiritual perfection and nothing can be more dangerous than this attitude.

So what are these practices for? They are intruments for rediscovering the authentic face of God, that face which remains “in secret”, in the depth of the conscience of each one and which Jesus wanted to reveal. Lent, in this sense, and only in this sense, is a journey of “mortification”. But not as it has often been understood. The Father does not want to “mortify” his children, but rather “to give them life”. The process of “mortification” asks us to “let die” in our spiritual experience what is bearer of death, our selfishness, our love to food, to money, our slavery to time what pollutes and encrusts the image of God by covering it with our desires.

God, the Father whom Jesus revealed to us, cannot be reduced to an entity who asks for sacrifices and renunciations to grant us his benevolence. This image of God is not the image that Jesus revealed to us. This is why Jesus insists on finding “in secret”, in the depths of our conscience, a more authentically filial relationship with our Father, a relationship not based on “do ut des”, but a relationship based on mercy that every day makes me experience the beauty and responsibility of living as a beloved child.

Lent is the season to find again the right direction, to restore freshness to that intimate filial relationship with the Father who “gives us life”, makes us alive with the gift of his Spirit. And Jesus indicates us the rout.

With him we enter this “desert” of Lent which obliges us to travel light, to abandon many things that we consider important but which ultimately end up to be only useless burdens. With him we enter this “desert” of Lent to learn by the Spirit how to fight against Satan and his temptations.

Happy Lent, my brothers and sisters!