Some day you’re going to be dust. That’s right, you. You’re going to be dust. Every Ash Wednesday the Church reminds you of this. This is frightfully un-modern of the Church. Modern people don’t mention the subject. Oh, they’ll be glad to discuss the death of God; it’s not quite the parlor game it was a few years back, but you can still stir up a lively discussion concerning the death of God. But the death of man, particularly your own personal death*/?!!—let’s change the subject.

But, the Church keeps bringing it up every Ash Wednesday, demanding that you think about it. The Church doesn’t do it very gently either. You were dust and that’s what you are going to be again. That’s what the Church says as ashes are put on your brow. To certain minds it may seem a bit morbid. But it really isn’t. It should be a happy thought.

Because, what the Church is really saying is that this wonderful body God gave you, so complex, so apportioned to meet your needs during your sojourn on earth is going to be returned to dust. But not you, for you are not your body, you are an immortal spirit.

However, living as we do in our bodies, it is easy for us to start thinking as if we were our bodies. We live in an age of packaging, so much so that when we make our purchases at the stores, we are as many times influenced by the packaging as we are by the contents. So, the Church, on Ash Wednesday, is reminding us that the packaging came from dust, and that it will be dust again. What we are talking about is how we tend to think in terms of the material rather than the spiritual. Even very good people can be turned to thinking of the material things in helping people and helping people in a spiritual way may never occur to them.

Ash Wednesday opens a 40 days’ training period for the soul, culminating on Easter Sunday when we are reminded that we not only will, by faithfulness, gain an eternal life in the presence of God, but that some day we’ll even be reunited with our glorified bodies.

Let Ash Wednesday be the start, and let this Lent make a difference in the advancement of your spiritual life. Do this through, frequent reception of the sacraments, meditation , special prayers, and self-denial of some kind—the alternatives are almost unlimited. Always remind yourself that it is your soul that is most important.

It is not my purpose to tell you what you should do or how you should do it. The purpose is to remind you that you should do something. Ash Wednesday is intended to jar you into remembering that this body is not forever, that it will be dust again, sooner than you expect undoubtedly,