Sometime this week, as I went about my regular work and business, I noticed something different on the faces of the people I met. As I looked at them, they stared back at me, incredulous, wondering perhaps why I did not wear what they were wearing.

It was Wednesday and most people I met on the streets, inside the malls and in some offices had this distinctive “ash” on their foreheads. “Ah, its ash Wednesday!” I thought, the beginning of the Catholic observance of Lent—the 40-day period leading to their celebration of passion and death of Jesus Christ.

The image I saw on the foreheads of people kept me thinking about those “ashes”  for the rest of the day.

I remember when I was about five or six years old, after seeing my mother was proud to wear those ashes on her head, I went straight to our kitchen, dipped my finger in the coal stove and put my own ash mark on my forehead, not knowing what the “ash” meant – it was considered “cool” to wear it.

We can call it ashes (“abo”), dirt (“alikabok”), or clay (“putik”) – all of which come from the same element or basic component which we call “earth”. The idea is to remind people of their mortality, the need to be sorrowful because of sin, and the necessity of changing their lives through self-denial and penance...

I will not dig into the controversial aspects of this Catholic “custom” which with a little research will show its questionable origin. What I would like to emphasize here is the important focus God has placed on the biblical symbols of “ashes”, “dust” and “clay” which I find lacking in the outward display of piety among people today.

While the Catholic teaching on the matter seems to pull back man from its present reality and reminded them of their past and so-called future destination – “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” – it is NOT what God had actually intended for man from the very beginning...

How real is God to you?

Gaano katotoo sa inyong buhay ang Panginoong Diyos? Is He really real to you?

Is God “all around you?” Is He “everywhere”, as the lyrics of our offertory song “God’s Coloring book” this afternoon describes?

When you wake up in the morning, is He the first thought that comes into your mind?

How about in the evening or at night as you are about to lay your head on the pillow as you rest and sleep? Is He still in your mind?

Kailan nagiging totoo ang Diyos sa inyong buhay?

Karaniwan na natin naririnig at obserbasyon na rin sa mga tao- nagiging “real” or totoo daw sa kanila ang Diyos kung sagana ang kanilang buhay. . . pero kapag oras ng kagipitan, eh parang ‘abandoned’ na sila.

Kabaligtaran naman sa ilan – kapag puno ng kasiyahan at kasaganaan ang buhay, aba! Nawawala o nakakalimot – masyadong sinusubsob ang buhay doon sa success sa buhay, pero kapag naghihirap o naghihikahos na, doon lang naalala, aba, may Diyos pala!

Fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, each with their own strengths, an assortment of active faults but all learning to be built by the Almighty Creator into healthy working members of the household of faith. To borrow from the apostle Paul, “Everything and in all things we learn both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need...” How much better instruments of the good news to our neighbors we can be when first we learn to build our families on the unchanging Word of God...

Sung entirely by our beloved Gentlemen’s Choir, accompanied by Jon Cardona on keyboard and Ralph Hipe on guitar, the lyrics refresh the only hope for all mankind when one day, the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of GOD as the waters cover the sea...

Who will “fight poverty, create jobs, feed the hungry, build you a house, fight corruption, promote unity, restore justice, upgrade education, save the earth...?” Can any man or woman even begin to work this among human minds who prefer the very same ambiguous values that caused these troubles in the first place? Who “...exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator...”? (from Paul’s letter to all who are in Rome)

“Seek the LORD while He may be found,
Call upon Him while He is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way,
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
Let him return to the LORD,
And He will have mercy on him...
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD.
“ For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven,
And do not return there,
But water the earth,
And make it bring forth and bud,
That it may give seed to the sower
And bread to the eater,
So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

(from the vision of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 55)