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Genesis 3:824 describes the consequences of man's rebellion against God. For you are dust, and you will return to dust.''. Genesis 3:19, CSB: 'You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it.

And by stages we make our way to Easter, to heaven, to the Resurrection. Berean Study Bible All go to one place all come from dust, and all return to dust.So to begin Lent we are marked with dust, symbolizing our earthly origin and destiny. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. English Standard Version All go to one place. New Living Translation Both go to the same placethey came from dust and they return to dust. Every earthly destiny converges in the inescapable truth of our bodily death and decomposition.All go to the same place all come from dust, and to dust all return.

In the Mass, Jesus gives Himself to us as Paschal Food and Drink so that we might have the strength to continue our journey.God’s grace is transformative, and that is one of its greatest qualities. And on Ash Wednesday we celebrate the Holy Eucharist. One of the major Lenten themes is that of Baptism, which is our introduction into divine life and our insertion into the Paschal Mystery of Jesus. This reminds us of how the dust of our bodies was once washed in the waters of Baptism.

We perform these works with the urgency communicated in the First and Second Readings of the Ash Wednesday Mass, and with the purity of heart for which Jesus calls in the Gospel:“Even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart” (Joel 2:12).“Behold, now is a very acceptable time behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2). We need to say “yes,” we need to work at the Christian life, we need to “repent and believe in the Gospel.” During Lent, we fortify our cooperation with grace by the works of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. He makes us like Himself, living His life, loving as He loves, becoming holy as He is holy.And it is one of God’s masterstrokes that, in an almost unfathomable mystery, He leaves room for our cooperation in this process of transformation.