By IHE Graduate Fellow Morgan Whitmer
As Ash Wednesday approaches, we are given an opportunity to remember death and repent from sin. When we receive the ashes, we hear the refrain, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” prompting us to remember God’s response to Adam after the fall: “You are dust and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). We remember that death is the consequence of sin. But God did not immediately smite Adam for his sin; he was given the chance to live, and to repent. And this is reflected in the liturgical celebration of Ash Wednesday. On Ash Wednesday, we recognize that between the dust from which we came and the dust to which we will return, we have life.
Josef Pieper uses the language of “viator” to describe man’s status as one who is “on the way,” but does not yet possess beatitude. He is becoming who he was created to be but is not yet there. The “not yet” of the viator has both a positive and a negative element. Because man is “on the way,” he has the freedom, at any point, to veer from the way by sinning. For Pieper, when man sins, he turns away from the beatitude for which he was created, and toward the nothingness from which he was created. He despairs at his own creation, in all creation, and even of the Creator himself. The despairing man does not want to be that which he nevertheless cannot stop being: “a spiritual being, truly satisfied with nothing less than God himself; and beyond that, ‘son of God,’ rightful heir to eternal life.”[1]
The “not yet” of the viator also has a positive element: the virtue of hope. Hope is not wishful thinking or naivety toward evil. The hopeful man does not turn a blind eye to the injury caused to creation through original sin, nor does he ignore prophetic claims about the catastrophic end to world history. But he also recognizes that the presence of evil in the world is not so powerful as to entirely blot out the goodness of creation. The hopeful man recognizes that all creation, including his own being, is willed by God, which means that it was created in love and is therefore, by its very existence, good. Pieper writes, “All hope says: it will be good, it will end well — with creation, with man, also with me.”[2] The hopeful man affirms the created world while simultaneously recognizing and confidently reaching toward eternal happiness. “In the virtue of hope more than any other, man understands and affirms that he is a creature, that he has been created by God.”[3]
It is not insignificant that the ashes we receive on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday are the burnt remains of the palms that we waved last year in recollection of Christ’s triumphal entrance into Jerusalem. While traditionally a king’s triumphal entry into a city would occur after the victory had been won, in scripture and in our liturgical commemoration, Christ entered the city before emerging as the victor over sin and death. But this reflects the reality in which we, as Christians, find ourselves. While Christ has definitively conquered sin and defeated death, our hearts have “not yet” been fully conquered by the crucified and risen Christ.[4] All too often, we despair and squander our inheritance. The palms, like our own hearts, are at first green and pliable, but far too quickly and often without our notice, dry out and become hardened. “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts” (Psalm 95:8). On Ash Wednesday, we recognize our status as “viator” and we are given a chance to repent. On Ash Wednesday, we are presented with our createdness and given two options: hope or despair. Just as the palms are reduced to ashes, we can subject our own hearts to the refining fire of Christ’s love.
[1] Josef Pieper, “The Obscurity of Hope and Despair,” Anthology, 23.
[2] Josef Pieper, “The Obscurity of Hope and Despair,” Anthology, 23.
[3] Josef Pieper, Faith Hope Love, 98.
[4] Archbishop Di Noia, “Palms and Ashes,” Grace in Season, 66.
