With Pope Francis we live the Lenten journey as a strong time of conversion and freedom
Into Lent 2024 comes “the darkness of inequalities and conflicts” that wound the world, Pope Francis recalls in his Message for this year’s Lent. He adds: «To the extent that this Lent will be one of conversion, then, lost humanity will feel a jolt of creativity: the flash of a new hope».
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Lent brings to mind the 40 days of fasting experienced by Jesus in the desert before embarking on his public mission. It is a figure that expresses the time of waiting, of purification, of awareness that God is faithful to his promises, a “accompanying Jesus as he ascends to Jerusalem, the place of the fulfilment of his mystery of passion, death and resurrection, and a reminder that the Christian life is a ‘way’ to be travelled, consisting not so much in a law to be observed, but in the very person of Christ, to be encountered, welcomed, and followed”, explained Benedict XVI in 2011 (Source: avvenire.it).
Let us, therefore, live Lent as a journey of faith and an opportunity for living participation in the Mystery of Christ who died and rose again for the salvation of humanity.
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The Holy Desert Fathers of the first centuries of Christianity, with their hard and ascetic lives, suggest the following reflections:
Lent is:
- Inner and outer silence with ourselves to make room for the Other and not to lose ourselves in worldly concerns.
- a place of desert, in which the spirit is strengthened in its fight against temptations, which seduce us on the path of evil.
- a privileged time of fasting and prayer, for the purification of our being, for a more sober life, attentive to the needs of the spirit and the needs of our brothers and sisters.
- privileged time of reconciliation and return to God, placing the reading and meditation of his Word at the centre of our activities.
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The Tradition of the Christian Church of the East invites us to a recovery of the prayer of the heart: that of the publican who, from the depths of his unworthiness, so simply prayed (Lk 18:13):
“O Lord, have mercy on me a sinner”.
FOR US OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD
LENT IS A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY OPEN TO ALL
In our days we also have more ways to “convert” secularly:
FAST
FROM WICKEDNESS
FROM SADNESS
FROM MALICIOUS, USELESS, EMPTY, ENVIOUS, POLEMICAL WORDS.
FROM MEANNESS, FROM WASTING TIME, FROM SELFISHNESS
TO FASTEN IS
TO REMOVE EVIL IN ORDER TO HUNGER MORE FOR GOOD
