From: https://cbcpnews.net/cbcpnews/cardinal-urges-filipinos-to-confront-complicity-in-corruption-as-lent-begins/
Cardinal urges Filipinos to confront complicity in corruption as Lent begins
On Ash Wednesday, Cardinal Jose Advincula urged Catholics to confront personal and collective responsibility, saying that repentance must include acknowledging complicity in corruption and injustice.
Speaking during his homily at the Arzobispado chapel in Intramuros, the Manila archbishop pointed to the beginning of Lent as a call to moral honesty beyond ritual observance.
“We confess that we are sinners, not only as individuals, but also as a people,” Advincula told the faithful gathered for the liturgy.
He said believers must recognize the broader social realities affecting the nation, including corruption, injustice and moral compromises embedded in everyday life.
“We dare to face the corruption, injustice, and compromises that afflict our nation and become aware of our own participation in them, whether by action, silence, or indifference,” the cardinal said.
Advincula warned that moral failure is not limited to overt wrongdoing but also includes passive participation in systems that perpetuate suffering and inequality.
He emphasized that the ashes imposed on the faithful symbolize humility and truth rather than shame or outward religious performance.
“God does not ask us to wear ashes to shame us, but to heal us,” Advincula said.
Describing ashes as reminders of human frailty, he said they expose illusions about self-sufficiency, permanence and moral innocence.
“Ashes tell the truth about us. They strip away the illusions and hallucinations that we often have about ourselves,” he said.
The cardinal also cautioned against reducing prayer, fasting and almsgiving to public displays disconnected from interior conversion.
“When we stop pretending, grace can finally enter,” he said, underscoring sincerity as essential to authentic repentance.
Despite the penitential tone of Ash Wednesday, Advincula described Lent as fundamentally rooted in hope rather than despair or condemnation.
“The ashes on our foreheads are not a mark of despair, but of hope,” he said, adding that God can bring new life even from the ruins of sin.
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