“Remember thou art dust and to dust thou shall return…”
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Ash Wednesday, he returned, and the mark was on his head. A sinner still in seeking: to live the Greater Love.
She did not go. She bore not the mark. She lived a different faith and yet believed in the Greater Love though she held doubts of Jesus’ word and the lineage from Peter.
He prayed for her for this, not to be converted on a principle of right: but that, should she become into belief, she would dare to give testament to new-seen truth.
All the day, he fasted, and in homecoming at its end, he was still not hungry. The emptiness was not a hunger but contrition and examen of his spirit; nature of his sinfulness, though he tried still to be better. Maybe life was a Purgatory, lessons and refinements of love in learn of all the ways its misapplied and wrong-directed. It is a pilgrimage of faith and learning, not a static state of waiting.
He held for many years in the false-piety of nothingness; false-virtue of believing doing no wrong was same as doing good and showing love.
It wasn’t.
He thought of that then in the hollow of his center, unhungry for meal but for filling of the Spirit.
He thought to the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and another he believed of man—body, mind, and soul; which one is but for a little while.
He looked to her—umarked, unblemished of the stain—but knowing and admitting, still, her histories of refine and find of love.
She was beauty of the body, beauty of the mind, whole essence of her soul—trinity of life but for a little while.
She smiled in his eyes, uncaring of the ash and mark of darkness painted to his brow. She loved him still in stain, admittance and forward seeking of refine into true of Greater Love.
Compassion in her eyes, soul spoke affection unto his; pang of the heart and fill of the void in communion of the spirit.
Caring, leading, guiding, she brought his body onto hers; compassion still in eyes, communion of the spirits, as she affirmed his heart, affirmed his hope, in Trinity-Love—body, mind, and soul—in union of a holy spirit.