The trumpet sounds! Can you hear it? It is the trumpet of God calling us to return to the Lord yet again. The trumpet sounds to get our attention, to turn us away from the idols “of the vain world’s golden store” (Hymnal 1982, 550), of which there are many continually calling our names, luring us with their siren songs away from attention to God. Ash Wednesday comes as out clarion call “to the observance of a holy Lent,” to focus our attention on how far we have strayed from the way of the Lord, to stir up contrite hearts within us. Praying the Litany of Penitence in the Ash Wednesday liturgy (BCP, p.267 ff) can’t help but fill us with repentance as we recognize how often we miss the mark and fall short of the glory of God.

The Church in her wisdom recognizes that one day a year is not enough to change our hearts and minds, our behaviors and attitudes. Studies have shown, however, that when we practice a new behavior for thirty days, it becomes a habit. The forty days of the Lenten season is more than sufficient, therefore, to put our intentions for amendment of life into practice., to prepare ourselves to be reconciled to God.

The psalmist proclaims the good news of God’s redeeming grace: “The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness. . . . He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our wickedness. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so is his mercy great upon those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has she removed our sins from us.” God surrounds us with reconciling love, drawing us away from our sinful thoughts and desires that separate us from God and one another and into the light of God’s presence. There we experience God creating clean hearts in us and renewing a right spirit within us (Ps.51:11) so “that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and holy, so that at the last we may come to his eternal joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord.”