Pope Francis on Ash Wednesday: Lent is about eternal rewards, not appearances

Pope Francis cautioned on Ash Wednesday against the temptation to allow Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to be taken over by an “illness of appearances” that cares more about earthly than eternal rewards.

In a homily read by the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin on March 2, the pope said that the rite of receiving ashes was an “austere sign, which leads us to reflect on the transience of our human condition.”

He added that it was “like a medicine that has a bitter taste and yet is effective for curing the illness of appearances, a spiritual illness that enslaves us and makes us dependent on the admiration of others.”

Parolin presided over a live-streamed Ash Wednesday Mass, as well as the blessing and imposition of ashes, in Pope Francis’ place on Wednesday, after the pope was unable to attend due to knee pain.

During the Mass at the first-century Basilica of Santa Sabina, on Rome’s Aventine Hill, the cardinal read the homily prepared by Pope Francis.

“The ashes bespeak the emptiness hiding behind the frenetic quest for worldly rewards,” he said. “They remind us that worldliness is like the dust that is carried away by a slight gust of wind. Sisters and brothers, we are not in this world to chase the wind; our hearts thirst for eternity.”

“Lent,” he underlined, “is the time granted us by the Lord to be renewed, to nurture our interior life and to journey towards Easter, towards the things that do not pass away, towards the reward we are to receive from the Father.”

Pope Francis added that “Lent is also a journey of healing. Not to be changed overnight, but to live each day with a renewed spirit, a different ‘style.’”

Prayer, fasting, and charity, also called almsgiving, are aids to this spiritual healing, he said.

“Purified by the Lenten ashes, purified of the hypocrisy of appearances, they become even more powerful and restore us to a living relationship with God, our brothers and sisters, and ourselves,” he said.

It has been the pope’s tradition to say the Ash Wednesday Mass at the Basilica of Santa Sabina on Rome’s Aventine Hill following a short procession from the nearby St. Anselm Church.

But due to the coronavirus pandemic, Pope Francis offered Mass at the Vatican in 2021 for a small group of around 100 people.

In 2022, it was announced that Francis would again celebrate Ash Wednesday Mass at the Basilica of Santa Sabina. But last week the Vatican said that Pope Francis had been experiencing “acute gonalgia,” a kind of knee pain, and needed to rest.