First Reading: Joel 2: 12-18, Responsorial Psalm: Psalms 51: 3-4, 5-6ab, 12-13, 14 and 17 Second Reading: Second Corinthians 5: 20 – 6:2 Verse Before the Gospel: Psalms 95: 8 Gospel: Matthew 6: 1-6, 16-18

Reflection on today’s reading is by Cyrus Habib, SJ., Global Policy and Institutional Strategy Lead, JENA.

My friends in Christ,

As we set out on our Lenten journey, many of us will take this opportunity to reflect on our own individual shortcomings, as well as our need for God’s forgiveness and the grace of conversion. And while examining how we can each personally grow in faith, hope, and charity is certainly an important aspect of this penitential season, allow me to invite you to something new this year. Would you consider joining me in repenting for the structural sins that cause so much suffering in our world? These are social, economic, and political structures for which we are not individually culpable, but in which we nevertheless participate in one way or another. Each and every day these unjust structures contribute to human suffering in countless ways, from spirit-crushing poverty and the degradation of our common home to ethnic hatred and the isolation felt by too many young people.

Six months ago, I began working for the Jesuit Conference of Africa and Madagascar (JCAM), where I focus on justice and ecology issues on the continent and beyond. We seek to address structural injustice through global advocacy and the coordination of our many social apostolates throughout Africa. Perhaps that’s why this Ash Wednesday I’m rending my heart for our collective failure to care adequately for our neighbors and planet.

In today’s first reading, the prophet Joel exhorts the people to repent for their collective wrong-doing so that they may experience God’s liberating love. He instructs them, “Gather the people, notify the congregation; assemble the elders, gather the children and the infants at the breast.” This repentance is to be experienced and expressed collectively, and everyone is included. As a community they will rise or fall together.

The Church in its social teaching emphasizes the centrality of the common good, predicated on the interwovenness of all people. If it offends God when I personally steal from a child, how could God ever tolerate a society that denies children access to food, education, or dignity? And yet we all live in such societies. Christ, have mercy.

In his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis warns against “evil crystallized in unjust social structures.” But given that most of us have little control over exploitative supply chains, extractive industries, or unjust tax policies, what could you and I ever hope to do about any of these? Jesus gives us a roadmap in today’s Gospel: almsgiving, prayer, and fasting, the three pillars of Lent. So, here’s my invitation: identify one unjust social structure from which you benefit, and dedicate your almsgiving, prayer, and fasting to its amelioration. Perhaps you might pray for those working in the sweatshops that manufacture component parts of your smart phone. Or you might abstain from using a social media platform that undermines our civic discourse. Or perhaps you might contribute some time or money to help educate underserved girls in your community.

It’s not for me to tell you how best to come closer to God during this season of Lent. Far from it. That’s something that each of us must discern prayerfully. But as we get underway, consider bringing this invitation to that discernment. For behold, now is a very acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.

Amen.