“It is the Father’s forgiveness that always set us back on our feet,” he said.

Next, he said, we need to return to Jesus. Like the leper who returned to thank Him, we too “need Jesus’ healing. We need to present our wounds to Him and say: ‘Jesus, I am in your presence, with my sin, with my sorrows. You are the physician. You can set me free. Heal my heart’.”
Then, said the Pope, we are invited to return to the Holy Spirit.

The ashes sprinkled on our heads, he pointed out, remind us that we are dust. “Yet upon this dust of ours, God blew His Spirit of life.”