The homily begins thus (read the full text here) :
We begin the Lenten Season by receiving ashes: “You are dust, and to dust you shall return (cf. Gen 3:19). The dust sprinkled on our heads brings us back to
earth; it reminds us that we are dust and to dust we shall return. We are weak,
frail and mortal. Centuries and millennia pass and we come and go; before the
immensity of galaxies and space, we are nothing. We are dust in the universe.
Yet we are dust loved by God. It pleased the Lord to gather that dust in his
hands and to breathe into it the breath of life (cf. Gen 2:7). We are thus a dust that is
precious, destined for eternal life. We are the dust of the earth, upon which
God has poured out his heaven, the dust that contains his dreams. We are God’s
hope, his treasure and his glory.
Ashes are thus a reminder of the direction of our existence: a passage from dust to life. We are dust, earth, clay, but if we allow
ourselves to be shaped by the hands of God, we become something wondrous. More
often than not, though, especially at times of difficulty and loneliness, we
only see our dust! But the Lord encourages us: in his eyes, our littleness is
of infinite value. So let us take heart: we were born to be loved; we were born
to be children of God.
