This is not about Anne and Joachim, or whoever were Mary’s parents and Jesus’s grandparents, but about how we put a value on, or better, find value in, grandparents and other older people. We can be sure that Mary was well brought up by good people, and perhaps it was with his understanding grandparents that Jesus stayed when he stopped behind in Jerusalem, aged 12.
This essay by Alan Jacobs explores the values that cannot be measured in pounds, euros or dollars, and makes for refreshing reading whatever your age. Read, enjoy, and ponder!
I don’t suppose we will be receiving ashes this year to start Lent, too much physical contact there! Lent will feel different, in fact we might feel we’ve had a year of Lent, not just 40 days, so why bother with Ash Wednesday, why bother with Lent at all?
Well, as one of the commands accompanying the ashes puts it: Repent and believe the Gospel. We are urged to repent, to turn our lives around. They’ve been pretty well turned around for us these past months, and many of us need no reminding that we are dust, and unto dust we shall return.
We know we are turning to dust, if only because we can spot the difference between today’s photo and one from 20 years ago; or we experience the slowing down, the failing strength, the memory full of holes, the comb full of hair. Honesty reminds us that there are habits we need to turn from, actions we need to turn to for the sake of our sanity and integrity.
And we just cannot do it. The prophet Joel (2. 12-18) may challenge us, ‘Come back to me with all your heart, fasting, weeping, mourning’; it’s the ‘with all your heart’ that’s the sticking point. That sticking point is known as Sin.
Artists from L’Arche Kent
Joel, after running through various ways that the people could turn to God, says that ‘the Lord, jealous on behalf of his land, took pity on his people’. God had issued the call for change, but it was his taking pity on his people that restored their relationship, not their fasting and lamentation. It’s so easy to convince ourselves that we are doing OK, if not actually doing well. But compromises, compromises, compromises: they tarnish our mirrors, deceive our eyes.
Jesus really did live a good life. Let’s use this Lent to follow him more nearly. And enjoy tonight’s pancakes!
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