Reflection for Ash Wednesday Year A 2026

Ash Wednesday heralds an adventure into the unknown full of questions and expectations that promise challenge, difficulty, but also great joy. We are invited to make the most wondrous adventure of the year. "Remember you are dust," we are told—but oh, what beautiful and splendid dust we are! For forty days, we are called not to a grim march of deprivation, but to fall into the hands of God with complete abandon.

Think of Lent as a small storm, named after you personally. We begin under the watchful, caring Eye of God, who gazes on us with tender delight as we wrestle with the life forces within. This is an exhilarating prospect! So, forget the experts for a while and trust your own sacred experience! Deep within your soul there is a special place, a sanctuary where gifts have been sleeping, waiting for you to awaken them.

Your heart plays tricks on you, pretending to be poor because you haven't learned how it works. So, this Lent practice the art of patient waiting and tender abiding. Learn to sit still with the soil of our inner life and all at once you will find it works itself. It wakes up out of its sleep and stretches—so big, so rich—and you discover that you've been rich with grace all along, just from being still.

The soul is rather shy, never demanding centre stage. However, these forty days offer her the opportunity to shine. She is the keeper of memories, the guardian of beauty, standing watch in the deep unconscious. She knows about the riches hidden in your story, and she's ready to reveal them.

So, abandon the hindrance of thoughts and words and enter willingly into the great Silence. We enter into the Eye of God, where all is calm and quiet; into a stillness beyond imagining! This is not an empty darkness but a beautiful one, alive with divine presence. Here we can stop struggling and let the angels carry us. Here we can let go even of our yearning for God, until nothing is left except being in God.

It is good to celebrate in the Silence! In giving ourselves up to love, we discover contemplation—it is like going to heaven for a while. This Ash Wednesday, we begin not with mourning, but with wonder. We are filled with splendour as offspring of the One who said "I am who I am," embarking on the journey of a lifetime.  Welcome to the adventure!!

By Fr. Thomas O'Brien a.a.