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Welcome to Westminster Abbey's Lent and Easter reflections.

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On Ash Wednesday, we begin with the book of Matthew,
chapter six, verses sixteen to twenty-one.

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‘And whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites,

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for they disfigure their faces so as to show others
that they are fasting.

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Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.

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But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face,

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so that your fasting may be seen not by others
but by your Father who is in secret;

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and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.’

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‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,

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where moth and rust consume and where thieves
break in and steal;

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but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,

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where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves
do not break in and steal.

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For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’

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The symbol of Ash Wednesday is usually a cross made of burned ashes
traced across our forehead.

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‘Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return’,
we are told.

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Lent is, after all, a season of penitence.

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But that cross is not the first to be traced on that spot.

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The first cross we received was drawn on our heads
at our baptism

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as we became members of the family of the Church,

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grafted into Christ’s Body and given the hope of glory.

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For a moment on Ash Wednesday,

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we are honest about how our sin and shame so often
blot out that hope, our capacity for love;

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we recall our share in the fallen world’s violence and greed,

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and how that can become overwhelming.

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But the original baptismal cross shines through.

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That is our treasure.

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A priest friend of mine once went into a school
on Ash Wednesday

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worried that the Ash on its own might not tell the
whole story to this group of kids.

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So he mixed some glitter in with the ash.

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Stardust, we might say.

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And after telling every teenager in the room
to remember that they were dust,

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 and to dust they would return, he added,
‘Go for glory.’

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Grant we beseech thee O Lord,

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that by the observance of this Lent we may deepen
in the knowledge of the mystery of Christ,

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and through our time of pilgrimage grow in holiness,
peace and forgiveness.

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Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.