DUST - Stardust - CALL ...

After this wonderful festive Season - Christmas-time full of joy and promises -
Jesus is born and recognized as a Savior - until today and sure by many...
Jesus is baptized, certified by God - like we by he Baptism into the Community
Jesus has declared his Life-project: to give his person as life-empowerment.

And now we change time...  we go into Lenten-time... we see Jesus on the cross-way.
From the joy of birth we fall, we crash into death.  ABSTURZ...
Lenten-time may be like a spiritual retreat: we meditate the fact that every Christian-Life
is a cross-way... a cross-way into resurrection; but - again / in every case - a cross way.

We start with Ash-Wednesday (10.02.2016)
The message - all people know: "remember - you are dust and to dust you will return".
This is now what we learn: You are DUST, nothing, useless, you are over, you don't count,
and this as your ultimate reality (to dust you will return!)

It's the most terrible message for a Christian! In the Baptism the Church told us: "Child of God"; as we follow Jesus Christ we are light, bread + wine; we are a blessing for many...
but today: "YOU ARE DUST" and finally only DUST (nothing else).
This sentence as a definition of a person is a real offence. They tell us: You are nothing more than a conglomerate of atoms. The atomic complexity makes you think, speak, love;
you have dreams, plans, illusions, imaginations; you have belief and hope,you have religion (belief in God and hope for Heaven); you participate with the Kingdom of God - but at the end... "to dust you will return". The natural sciences (N-wss) have more delight: showing us "we are Stardust" (for ever) - but the Church in 2016 will remind us: all is only DUST.

Here we touch the greatest temptation of our time  cf. 1. Lenten-Sunday C / Lk 4.1-13:
to agree - yes - all is nothing else than DUST. There is a time to be born, a time to live with good intentions, with religion (God + Salvation + Heaven) but then - all is illusion -
a helpful imagination - at the end: DUST!

Is there a SOLUTION against this pessimistic message: Life is a dream, an illusion - at the end nothing else... ???  FIRST: WE ACCEPT !!! It's very important to accept the reality.
After we accept this "wonderful - ultimate - dust - reality"  we (maybe) are able SECOND:
to make a decision. WE decide: the CALL of GOD into LIFE, into the fullness of Life,
is for us a reality too.  We know the "earthly reality" but we go further and we also believe in the reality of God.