Beggar

Ash Wednesday      Remember, O man, that “you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” say our priests as they trace the sign of the cross on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday.   They are quoting part of God’s words to Adam in Genesis 3:19b, after Adam had sinned.      Why do our pastors say this and place ashes on us?   Why do they remind us of human death, and of the fact that death is the result of sin?      They’re alerting us to the Good News, to the Pascal Mystery of Good Friday and Easter.   It’s this: God took away your death!         Before Jesus, everyone went after death to what the Old Testament calls the realm of the dead.   But now, because Jesus died in your place, you have the option to choose God and so to live with him in heaven.   That’s how the Cross changed  everything.   It’s why Jesus died for us.   It’s what we mean when we say that Jesus is the Redeemer of the world.          Ash Wednesday (and all of Lent) are meant to alert us, not

Who was Saint Valentine, Anyway?       The original man, Valentine, started his career, not as a Christian, but as a pagan priest  in ancient Rome.   He stood for a religion whose gods taught dishonesty and immorality.  For example, a minor god named Cupid was pictured shooting arrows of selfish, erotic desires at random into people’s hearts. That’s just one example of the values that were in society.   As a result, families in Rome were often unstable, business dishonest, and government corrupt.       The head of government at the time, Emperor Claudius II, hoped that his Roman Empire could somehow regain its old glory days, which he knew were slipping away.   One of his attempts was to require by law that everyone worship the twelve most important Roman gods.   He made it a crime to be a Christian, or even to associate with one.   The penalties were loss of jobs, refusal of education for one’s children, prison sentences, and even death.       That’s when Valen