Ash Wednesday Is Here Again!!

Dr. Jarlath Uche Opara
Jarlathuche@gmail.com

A yearly thing, once every year when ones forehead is signed with ashes from the previous year’s Palm Sunday burnt Palms.

A religious excercise, with a lot of meaning, relevance etc which many take pride in.

It is here again tomorrow, 5th of March 2025 leading one eventually to forty days and forty nights prayers and fasting, often times laced with almsgiving.

It is here again, when people are motivated to drop all their risky life styles and inapropriate indulgences, put them on hold for fourty days to observe their lenten duties.

That day of the year in church’ calendar has come again, when the beheading of alcoholic bottles and the emptying of its contents are not too frequent and the taste of beers, whiskey, brandy and campagnes for many taste buds very bland.

It is yet another season when the libido of some humans are caged and the raising and falling of their emotions and fantasies always on checkmate, for such raise may cause some defilement. The most holiest period, so sacred, so revered, so saturated always with the aroma of Godly presence.

It is that season in the Chuch’ liturgy that creates an atmosphere of pensiveness, soberness, mortification, penance etc, a season that makes sin look as sin and its appeal to the sensibility of one very prosaic . This of course isn’t for all, some are so unconcered, so hard and unyielding to the breeze of repentance and metanoia that comes with it.

I like this season if only it would reset the minds of people permnently unto righteousness, purity and Godliness. Sadly many see it as a stop gab, a moratoruim for sin, a season when sin is placed on hold with an expiration date to start all over again.

A season of forced spirituality for many that is not born out of conviction, repentance and brokeness, like a pig having been washed clean for forty days with prayer, fasting and almsgiving, would go back into the cess-pool of sin to begin from where they stoped, pick their baton and their race on the field of prolifigacy begins all over again.

If that is how one sees lent and the various spiritual activities attached to it, one won’t be wrong to say how a rolling stone that gathers mud one is, a life of vicious circle, a life of flying from the ground to perch on an anthill, a life of pendulous spiritual instability . Hot today, cold tomorrow.

Imagine if ones lifestyle becomes a constant reflection of lenten season in abstainance, in fasting, in prayer, in almsgiving, the hypocrasy that characterized our lives as christains may peharps be non existent and the flow of Godly presence, power and fellowship that come with the promises of God very much assured.

It is Ash Wednesday by tomorrow 5th of March and my prayer for us all is to have an encounter that would cause a revival in our lives, making us nothing but the tabernacle of God where our intimacy with him remains unhindered and the product of such constant union very fruitful.

As you sign your forehead with ashes tomorrow , remember you are his co-heir, you live in him, move in him and have your being in him and your life style should reflect that much. You are not an object. You are God’s image! And the power to do all things through Christ who strengthens you not a joke. It is real!!

Happy Ash Wednesdsy by tomorrow !! Fast, abstain, pray to refire for a revival never seen before. Not for the next forty days, but a lifestyle that would make your life always in alignment with Christ lifestyle.