Even the darkest moments of the liturgy are filled with joy, and Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the lenten fast, is a day of happiness, a Christian feast.
Interpretation
Even in challenging times, there can be joy and celebration in faith.
Thomas Merton highlights the paradox of joy in solemnity, suggesting that during Ash Wednesday, a day traditionally seen as a time of reflection and fasting, one can still find happiness. This insight emphasizes that spiritual observances, even during periods of penance, can bring a sense of joy and community within the Christian faith.
In practice
During a church service, I might use this quote to remind the congregation that there can be joy in their faith even during difficult times.
The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance, but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.
Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny....To work out our identity in God.
Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives.
You are made in the image of what you desire.
But if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for.
I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
In the difficult moments of life, Christians can turn to the Mother of God and find protection and care.
Are we ready to be Christians full-time, showing our commitment by word and deed?
Germany has an established and well-furnished Catholicism, often with employed Catholics who handle the church like a labor union. For them, the church is simply the employer.
I'd rather be able to pray than to be a great preacher; Jesus Christ never taught his disciples how to preach, but only how to pray.
With so much effort being poured into church growth, so much press being given to the benefits of faith, and so much flexing of religious muscle in the public square, the poor in spirit have no one but Jesus to call them blessed anymore.
Until we take seriously God's definition of the church and stop just 'having church,' we will not see transformation in our society.
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