Ash Wednesday has a special significance this year
Addressing St Peter’s Square pilgrims last Sunday (27th February), Pope Francis said Catholics had been shocked by the outbreak of war, after “repeatedly praying this road would not be chosen,” and repeated his call for March 2nd, Ash Wednesday, to be marked by prayer and fasting for peace. “He who wages war forgets humanity – he does not think about people, or have before his eyes the concrete life of people, but puts partial interests and power above all,” Francis said.
In this Sunday’s Gospel we hear about the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness (Luke 4: 1 -13) where Jesus after forty days of fasting is tempted to turn a stone into bread, to worship satan in exchange for the kingdoms of the world and to throw himself down from the parapet of the Temple in expectation of being rescued by angels.
Jesus’ responses to these temptations show what his ministry is to be about. Jesus will not simply be concerned with people’s needs. He will neither be the kind of warrior king the Jews expected the messiah would be nor a wonder worker: he will be a servant king, bringing God’s love and salvation to everyone.
There is a message here which Putin will not see because he is a man very far from the God of love. As Pope Francis said, “He who wages war forgets about humanity- he does not think about people…”
Deaths – so many – and the bereavement of loved ones, millions suffering trauma, countless injuries, much hardship and hunger, displacement of hundreds of thousands and destruction – this seems to matter little to him; even the deaths of young men in the Russian army sent to kill their neighbours across the border without knowing why there being no legal or moral justification.
As Pope Francis says we must pray and fast. Miracles abound in the support for the Ukrainian people from around the world. We must pray for this senseless and evil attack to end before much worse happens.