Ash Wednesday 2026

As Ash Wednesday approaches each year, one of the first questions we Catholics will ask is “What should I give up for Lent?” And it’s a fair question because, as we know, penance is a traditional part of our Lenten observance. So, how do you or your family and friends answer this question? Do you give up the internet? Social media? Television? Chocolate or another favorite food? Soft drinks, coffee, or alcohol?

It’s true that taking a break from any of those can be good for us, helping us to be healthier or to possibly have more time for those whom we love. But we also have to ask ourselves if these “sacrifices” are really helping us to grow in our lives as Christians. In other words, are we simply changing habits for forty days, or are we allowing God to change us?

Sadly, when it comes to the forty days of Lent, too many of us focus simply on what we “give up,” rather than fixing our attention on the rich opportunities of this season and the deeper meaning of fasting and abstinence. By doing this, we run the risk of turning Lent into a time of “spiritual gymnastics,” focusing on sacrifice rather than on growing in our faith and spiritual maturity.  Ash Wednesday interrupts that pattern; it slows us down and invites us to ask a different set of questions.

And so, it might be helpful to think of Ash Wednesday as an opportunity to pause and take a breath on what is really our life-long journey of faith.

Reorient yourself.

Reimagine.

And, as it is needed, repent.

Set aside what weighs you down so that you can set out again with greater freedom and determination. Allow the traditional bona opera (“good works”) of prayer, almsgiving, and fasting to help you to focus on what is most important. But also remember that these practices only bear fruit when they lead us somewhere deeper… and it is here that we are being reminded that Lent asks that we become vulnerable. This vulnerability creates space within our hearts and souls to allow Christ’s healing and whole-making mercy to “wipe out” our offenses and wash us from our guilt. Scripture calls this a “broken and contrite heart,” and poets have found language for it as well. This is the vulnerability that we hear in Oscar Wilde’s poem “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”:

 …And thus we rust Life’s iron chain

     Degraded and alone:

And some men curse, and some men weep,

     And some men make no moan:

But God’s eternal Laws are kind

     And break the heart of stone.

And every human heart that breaks,

     In prison-cell or yard,

Is as that broken box that gave

     Its treasure to the Lord,

And filled the unclean leper’s house

     With the scent of costliest nard.

Ah! Happy those whose hearts can break

     And peace of pardon win!

How else may man make straight his path

     And cleanse his soul from Sin?

How else but through a broken heart

     May Lord Christ enter in?

Ash Wednesday is not about proving how much we can endure or how much we can give up. It is about allowing God to do something within us that we cannot do for ourselves. The ashes we receive today are not a mark of failure, but a sign of hope—a reminder that what is dry can be made fertile again, that what is hardened can be softened, and that what is broken can become the very place where Christ enters in.

So, as we begin these forty days, may we have the courage to let our hearts be opened, to become honest before God, and to trust that God’s mercy is stronger than anything that has weighed us down. And may this Lent not simply change our habits for a season but gently reshape our hearts for a lifetime.

Homily prepared for Old St. Mary’s Church and the School Sisters of St. Francis in Milwaukee, Wisconsin