Gottesblog

Of particular interest on this day are the ashes of the whole burnt offering, which were removed by the priest from the Lord’s Altar to a clean place outside the camp of Israel. For so do your body and life remain in this world, but no longer of it; no longer unclean because of your sins, which are removed, but cleansed and forgiven by the Blood of Christ Jesus and His acceptable Sacrifice. Even now in your still mortal flesh, you live and abide outside the camp with the Crucified One.

And this burnt offering of your body and life as a Christian, this living sacrifice of repentance, faith, and love, is characterized and exercised by those three basic practices to which Christ Jesus refers in the Holy Gospel for this day: fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. Indeed, He does not teach you to avoid this fundamental piety of the Christian life, but to avoid all pretense and presumption, and to undertake these basic activities of discipleship in the fear and faith of the one true God.