Rome, Italy, Feb 22, 2012 / 13:31 pm
Like millions of Catholics around the world, Pope Benedict XVI received ashes on Ash Wednesday. He said that they become a “sacred symbol” of austerity which reflects both the “curse” of sin and the promise of the resurrection in a fallen world.
The Ash Wednesday words from Scripture -- “dust you are and unto dust you shall return” – are “an invitation to penance, humility and an awareness of our mortal state,” the Pope said.
“We are not to despair, but to welcome in this mortal state of ours the unthinkable nearness of God who opens the way to Resurrection, to paradise regained, beyond death … The same spirit that resurrected Jesus from the dead can transform our hearts from hearts of stone to hearts of flesh,” he said in his homily at the fifth-century Basilica of Santa Sabina, where he too received ashes.
Lent is thus a journey towards the “Easter of Resurrection.”
The Pope spoke after leading the Ash Wednesday evening procession on Rome’s Aventine Hill, a tradition revived by Pope John Paul II in 1979.
The papal homily included a short reflection on the meaning of ashes in Scripture and in Christian thought.