Ash Wednesday**

"Please be patient; God isn't finished with me yet."

The cry of the prophet Joel, which the Church uses to open this season of Lent, is 

"Rend your hearts, not your garments"  

"He called the people to him and said, 'Listen, and understand. What goes into the mouth does not make a man unclean; it is what comes out of the mouth that makes him unclean...Can you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes through the stomach and is discharged...? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and it is these that make a man unclean. For from the heart come evil intentions: murder, adultery, fornication, theft, perjury, slander. These are the things that make a man unclean" (Matthew 15:11-20)

The commandments are broken first in our hearts. Murder (anger, violence) is an external act, but it begins in the profound depth of our hearts where hatred and disrespect and resentment reside unchecked. Adultery is committed spiritually before it is committed physically. The external words used to lie or ruin the good name of others are conceived in an ugly heart. 

A slow but steady change in our deepest values provides a perspective from which we focus on the significant things in life. Lent provides opportunities for focusing on individual needs for change, and the Word of God helps us cultivate an openess to God's call to change. The external acts of penance such as fasting and almsgiving must touch our hearts, not merely our external behavior. Conversion, like morality, is a matter of the heart. We cannot change our conduct unless we first change our hearts.