Darnel and Wheat

Ash Wednesday: the day in the Catholic calendar when we listen to the words, "when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that no one will know you are fasting...", and a few minutes later go forward to have a big cross marked on our foreheads.  I suppose the only way I can reconcile these elements of the liturgy is to understand them both as reminders of what, or who, my actions should be for.  Fasting is useless if it serves to give me a warm glow of heroic self-restraint.  The same goes for prayer and alms-giving: if these are about basking in self-perceived holiness, I am a hypocrite, not a Christian.  So it's not such a bad idea to be marked as what I am: a hypocrite, a sinner, a creature formed from the dust who turns away so readily from its creator and who can do nothing apart from that creator.  Yet who, with the creator, is a co-creator!  Today, if I wish, I can give my sandwich to the lady who sits by the underground station, rather than eating it myself.  Today, if I wish, I can pray for her.  Today, if I wish, I can ask God to help me crush and smother the darnel in me to give space for the wheat to grow.  But I can ask, too, for acceptance.  We are all darnel and wheat.  Concentrating on the darnel in others is a sure recipe for bitterness.  Concentrating on the darnel in ourselves is a sure recipe for discouragement.  This Lent, my prayer is for God to help me rejoice in the wheat! 

Thanks to all you people who have shown me the wheat in the world by your words of support, by your positive response to my efforts to be a co-creator.  You give me the energy I need to keep on running!