“How will you make it count?” Bishop DeDe’s message for Ash Wednesday and Lent (2022)

Watch above: Bishop DeDe Duncan-Probe of the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York offers a reflection for Ash Wednesday and Lent 2022. A transcript follows, below.

This Lent, how will you draw closer to the truth of the God who loves you, loves your neighbor, and calls all people to live with love, compassion, and mercy? Tell us in the comments, or if you need some ideas for a Lenten practice, please check out our favorite Lenten resources for 2022.


Transcript

“Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.” In other words: you’re going to die. You only have today. How will you make it count?

Our Christian faith calls us to repentance; to start with telling the truth that the things we have thought were so important⁠—our pride, our self-sufficiency, our comfort⁠—have actually led us to a place that is tired and wanting. Only when our lives are filled with the grace of God and the hope of God can we fully live each moment, not based on comfort or power of our own, but dwelling deep within the power of God, and knowing that our comfort comes from God’s living love in us.

We are dust, and to dust we shall return. So I pray, dear friends, that this Lent we might draw closer to the truth of God: that God loves us; that God loves you; that you have all you need to be the person God’s called you to be, and that you are called to live fully and deeply into each moment.

I pray you will fast this Lent from things that have held you back. I pray you will meditate on God’s love as revealed in scripture; that you’ll tell the sacred stories and hear in the stories your story. And most of all I pray you’ll know that your life is bigger than this moment: that God is calling you beyond this time to live with love, compassion, and mercy, with all people.

May you be blessed and be a blessing. This holy Lent you discover your real purpose. And may this holy Lent you feel God’s love for you in new ways.

Blessings.

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