PRAYER / Lenten Reflection 2005 Wednesday, February 9, 2005 Ash Wednesday

Just as Advent begins the church new year, so today begins another kind of new year: a turning with even more of our heart to Jesus who speaks to our hearts through prayer. We are older, wiser and more full of grace (not because we are "more good" but because we have more capacity) than we were last Ash Wednesday. "Now is the acceptable time," Paul proclaims, quoting scripture, "Now is the day of salvation!" Now we begin again. Dusty with ashes but equipped for mission, and that mission, Paul tells us in today’s reading, is to be ambassadors of reconciliation. School Sisters of Notre Dame commit themselves to "that oneness for which Jesus Christ was sent." Yet baptism commissions all of us to be instruments of reconciliation, unity and peace.

We are all commissioned, but how shall we, just today and very specifically, be an ambassador of reconciliation? Sometimes we think prayer is "telling" God, but it also means listening to God as well. First, do you want to be an instrument of unity and peace? Tell God your desires and hesitations. Then, ask the Spirit to teach you how you can be that ambassador today. Listen. With whom do you need reconciliation? If that person has died, speak to him/her now. Then listen. Is that person open to discussion? If not, at least you can pray for the gift of someday being reconciled. And then there is the gaping wound of our world which needs so much reconciliation, unity and peace. Pray, both telling God of your concern, your hope, and listening to God's hope for our world.

Contributor: Sister Rea McDonnell

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