Ash Wednesday

What is Man, O Lord, that you came and died for him? Was there beauty that you sought to save, was there capability, or grace or joy that needed thy salvation? No! There was nothing! For out of the dust we came and to the dust we shall return! We are nothing but dust, there is no beauty, there is no redeeming grace, there is only sin, desolation and loathesome selfeshness within the heart of man. We sin against you, and against one another daily, we are slaves to our own inordinate desires, we are purely selfish beings who do nothing for Other, and everything for Self. It would be best if we had never been born, but we have been born, and so it would be better for us to be cast into eternal damnation then to continue on in our wretched sinfulness.

But for some reason that cannot be comprehended by reason you came to earth and died upon a cross! You, the infinite good, came to earth and became sin, tainted thyself in a disgusting display of the consequence of our sin. You, O most Holy and Precious Lord, were nailed to the tree by my sin, by my own most grievous sin. You had to die because of me. The immortal had to become death, the sinless had to become sin, hope had to become sorrow, and love had to become selfishness so that my own wretched soul should not perish in the fires of hell. But that it would! That this wretched soul be cast into the fires of Hell where it belongs, and that you my most Holy Savior and God would not have to die! But you have died, and so I show my gratitude by accepting your grace....but how little this means! I daily turn from you and enslave myself to that which you bought me from, I return to the vomit of my youth, and I daily forget thee and thy grace, and yet you still continue to grant me grace! Why O God hath thou shown such imcomprehensible, infinite love to such a wretch as I? Glory be to Jesus! Thou art all, and none but thou art!