'Reflect on the deserts of our own life'

More than 400 people attended the 12:05 p.m. Ash Wednesday Mass and received ashes at Corpus Christi Cathedral on March 2, with Bishop Michael Mulvey presiding. Concelebrating Mass with bishop were Vicar General Father James Stembler and a visiting Salvatorian priest, Father Paul Wilkin SDS. Also joining them on the altar as Master of Ceremonies was Cathedral Rector, Father Peter Elizardo and Deacons Santos Jones and Adelfino Palacios, Jr.

“Jesus began his ministry in the desert,” Bishop Mulvey said during his homily. “But Jesus didn’t stay in the desert. He moved out to encounter the woman caught in adultery and the tax collector. He called them to a conversion.”

He asked congregants to reflect on their own deserts of life, saying, “The journey of life is to move away from sin, which is enslavement, to freedom, which is God. Every experience in life that we have together or personally is an opportunity to look at ourselves. What are our Christian values? How do we live as a disciple of Jesus Christ during a pandemic? Do we react in anger, frustration or finger-pointing? How do we live? And when we see ourselves, it reveals perhaps our weaknesses and our sinfulness,” he said.

Reminding them of Sunday’s Gospel reading of Luke, Jesus says, “How can you take the splinter out of your brother or sisters when you can’t even remove the plank from your own. It means judgment is not valid. Have we judged? Is our life about judgment and looking for other people’s wrongs? Or is it about looking at myself first? What do I need to change? What do I need the grace of God to come into my life to assist me in changing?”

“I would invite you this Lent to stay close to the Word of God. Recognize your sins, recognize that we are sinful, and the Gospel will guide us to that new freedom. This Lenten season is a special time. It doesn’t end today with the ashes. It goes on for 40 days in our own desert. It leads us to the experience of Holy Week, and I hope many of you will come to share in the Eucharistic moment of Holy Thursday. Be here on Good Friday when we celebrate, remember the death of the Lord in a stark way and be here for Easter and resurrection and new life,” he said. “And let us journey together to Pentecost to know that we are children of God who live, thrive and are free through the spirit of Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit.”