Remember that you are dust, and to dust, you shall return.

Remember that you are dust, and to dust, you shall return.

During Lent, let us spend the gift of time this Lenten season seeking the wisdom of heart taught by self-sacrifice, so that, dead to sin, we may rise to new life in Christ, in whom death has died.

O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next. Before the mountains were born or the earth or the world brought forth, you are God, without beginning or end.

You turn men back to dust and say: “Go back, sons of men.” To your eyes a thousand years are like yesterday, come and gone, no more than a watch in the night.

You sweep men away like a dream, like grass which springs up in the morning. In the morning it springs up and flowers: by evening it withers and fades.

So we are destroyed in your anger, struck with terror in your fury. Our guilt lies open before you; our secrets in the light of your face.

All our days pass away in your anger. Our life is over like a sigh. Our span is seventy years or eighty for those who are strong.

And most of these are emptiness and pain. They pass swiftly and we are gone. Who understands the power of your anger and fears the strength of your fury?

Make us know the shortness of our life that we may gain wisdom of heart. Lord, relent! Is your anger forever? Show pity to your servants.