Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return

Pray

Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.

As the cross of ashes is traced on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday, we are told to think of dust and to remember who we are.

It is fitting that we should remember that we are dust, given Matthew's insistence that our almsgiving and prayer should be done quietly and with humility. The word humility literally means "near the ground," which is of course where dust most often gathers. Dust is not ostentatious. And dust is everywhere.

Dust reminds us that our relationship with God and with each other should also be normal, habitual, ordinary and second nature. God wants a relationship with us, one that is woven into the very fabric of our lives. On Ash Wednesday, we remember that God's extraordinary love is an ordinary part of the life of a disciple. And we return to the Lenten practices that strengthen that habit of love: prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

This Lent, let dust remind you of Jesus' call to make His love our best habit. Because His love is everywhere; it won't be hard to find wherever we go.

Fast

Have you ever stopped to think about how much snack food we consume in a day? "Snack" is the currency of the classroom, the office and the commercial break. It's what we do between activities. Snack has indeed become a cultural habit.

Lent asks us to break old habits and form new ones. This Lent, consider giving up eating between meals. Replace it with a fast that physically calls to mind the deep desire of the poor to find solutions to the root causes of hunger and economic insecurity. And turn that restless energy, which often drives us to the snack cupboard, into action. Learn about people in need throughout the world and advocate for meaningful change on their behalf.