2022 Ash Wednesday

Lent is a season of return, returning to the source of one’s very existence, and in so doing, to one’s authentic self.

In this profound homily, Father Jegar Fickel invites us to enter the Lenten season with a spirit of introspection and renewal. He emphasizes the importance of recognizing our own faults and the necessity of experiencing personal salvation before we can truly help others.

Father Jegar discusses the common human tendency to judge others while being blind to our own greater faults, using the metaphor of noticing a splinter in a brother's eye while ignoring the wooden beam in our own. He explains that Jesus’ teachings about judgment are not an injunction against discernment but a call to first undergo a deep personal transformation. This transformation involves recognizing and embracing our own brokenness, which allows us to experience God's saving grace.

By advocating for a return to confession and the sacraments, Father Jegar underscores the need for a tangible experience of God's forgiveness. He argues that it is only after we have faced our own 'wretchedness' and received divine love in those places that we can begin to be vessels of true love and salvation for others.

As we prepare for the Eucharist, Father Jegar challenges each of us to confront our own imperfections, not as a cause for despair, but as an opportunity for encountering God's transformative love. This Lent, we are called not just to abstain from certain pleasures but to engage deeply with our spiritual poverty, allowing Christ’s redemptive love to restore and refresh our hearts, making them wells of goodness for the world.