Our liturgical beginning of the season of Lent starts today with Ash Wednesday. It marks the beginning of the time of the year when we are challenged to take a deeper look into ourselves and to examine our lives so that we can work on changing certain habits or actions which do not help us on our way to building up God’s kingdom on earth.
 Today’s ashes bring to our mind one of the most famous lines in the Bible: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return” (cf. Genesis 3:19).
This is a natural thought for every Christian, and a source of strength to stay faithful even when difficulties arise, instead of following the path of the law of the minimum effort through life.
The law of nature tells us that there is no life without death. The law of super-nature, the law of our Christian faith, tells us that there is no resurrection without a cross.
Lent tells us that there is no spiritual growth without self-denial.  During Lent we are encouraged to self-sacrifice through almsgiving, fasting and prayer, and we may do so. However, we may give alms just to demonstrate our generosity. We may pray just to make an impression on others. Our praying may simply be an attempt to demonstrate our exceptional piety. We may fast, not really to humble ourselves in the sight of God, but to show our brothers and sisters what a splendid self disciplined character we have. We may practice good works simply to win praise from men. All these, according to the Gospel, will be useless; will be a waste of time because, as the Gospel says, you have already received your reward. So the external manifestations must spring from our internal spirit. All the penitential manifestations will remain meaningless if they remain peripheral.
The ashes spread on our forehead must be a reminder throughout the season of Lent that we need a constant examination of our life to make it socially useful. Only from this perspective our custom of giving up something for Lent will make sense.
By giving up something that we like, by voluntarily giving that up, we are exercising our faith that this life is not all that exists, we are reminding ourselves that we cannot achieve the purpose for which we were created. Just by trying to create heaven on earth through self-indulgence, we are expressing our confidence in God, in his revelation about the meaning of life and death. There would be no reason for self-denial if we didn’t believe in Christ’s Kingdom. Giving up something for Lent, strengthens our spirit. We are training our souls in self-discipline and self-mastery. There are times in life when in order to do the right thing, or in order to help someone else who is in trouble, we have to be able to renounce our own preferences or desires.
Ash Wednesday reminds us of this great truth, the transitory nature of our existence. The ashes tell us that we all are mortal.
The call to repentance that echoes through today’s readings shows us the same thing – life on earth will not go on forever, so we need to take responsibility for it, to live it the way God meant it to be lived. Otherwise we will fail in our purpose; we will fail to reach the destination we are meant for: eternal life.