During my first 25 years of being a Catholic, I did not ask, “Why I am doing this? Why is the Church doing this? Why do we participate in all these rituals?” After my conversion though, I started to ask “why”. In asking that, I embraced my faith more deeply.

I can see that for many non-Catholics, what Catholics do may be confusing. I can also see that even for many Catholics today they do not understand the meaning of our rituals, or how they are a rich part of the Catholic Church. Before my conversion, I was a person like the prophet Isaiah mentioned - I “keep listening, but I do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand” (Is 6:9). I think this is the case for most of us.

As we enter the season of Lent, it is helpful to understand the richness of this time. Lent is a period of 40 days, not counting Sundays. 40 is a significant number in Scripture: in the book of Genesis there was the flood which came upon the earth for 40 days (Gen 7:119); the Israelites spent 40 years in the wilderness (Num 14:33); and then there’s the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the wilderness (Mt 4:2). As Christians, Lent follows most closely Jesus’ time in the wilderness. 

Over these coming 40 days, the Church invites us to enter our own wilderness - like the wilderness Jesus entered after His baptism, “then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished” (Mt 4: 1-2). We are called to open our hearts to God’s love through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and are encouraged to go to confession. When we do, starting with Ash Wednesday, we join the journey with Jesus to the Cross and Resurrection.

During Ash Wednesday services, the words, “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” are often spoken by the priest and ministers as the ashes are distributed. This reminds us that death comes to us, that we need to repent, and that, in the beginning God created people by breathing life into dust and therefore, without God, we are nothing more than dust. Knowing this truth, the Church invites us to look back to our baptismal promises and see where we are and what we are doing right now. As human beings, we fall so often, but Lent is a time for us to repent of our sins and reconcile with God again.