FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT (B): THE SUPREME PARADOX

“Unless a grain of wheat falls down to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.”

It is an undisputed fact that all of us want to live, and have life to the full. Nobody in his right mind would like to die, and to give his life away, just for the sake of giving it. Each one of us would want as much as possible to live life to its full potential, and it is this desire that makes us recoil from the thought of just existing; somehow the expression “get a life” would convey to us that we are not just here to stay put nor just simply exist. Each of us desires to live (not just exist), and more than that, we want to live it to the full. Going further, we may ask ourselves what the expression “living life to the full” means. I myself would be at a loss to tell you exactly what that would mean on my own, but I have the feeling that life could never be lived and enjoyed to the full if it shut out from growth. When we continue to grow and age with grace, this is when we live life fruitfully. But then, that would lead us to consider another question: what does it mean to grow?

In the Gospel we hear the Lord saying these familiar words: “Unless a grain of wheat falls down to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” Jesus teaches us something important about life, using an example from nature. In this temperate region where I presently am, the harsh winter has gradually ceded to spring, with its gentle promise of new life and growth. Where previously there had been dry and seemingly inert branches, flowers are blooming, with the concealed promise of future fruits. But before these flowers ever came to be, before those fruits could ever be able to bend branches, the seed has to let go in order to give up its shoots; the flower has to give up its fragrance and its beauty, in order that it may bear fruit.

“Whoever loves his life loses it; and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for life eternal”. The law of life has been imprinted by God’s wisdom in the cycle of nature. The miracle of life does not exclude death from itself; rather it forms part of life. Dying in order to life: this is the supreme paradox of life. This is true in our life as Christians, as persons called to live. Jesus shows us that if we want to live, we have to let go, knowing that life moves on, and that the only true good that we have to hold on to is the very love of God, that does not age, that does not turn brittle, that does not fade. In the present state of things, letting go is a very important part of life; we cannot live to the full is we are too full of things that are perishable, things that moths eat and destroy, and that thieves could steal. We cannot live to the full if we insist on enjoying things as if they were meant to last forever, as if they could give us any real and lasting joy. Jesus the Lord, with the words of the Gospel, opens our eyes and allows us to see that we have to let go of things and make it our aim to make as our prized possession the only thing that endures and really matters: our union with God. This is something so great that it even merits us forgetting ourselves. this friendship, this love is so great, its fruit so satisfying, that the very price that we must pay is our very self: He who does not deny himself and take up his cross is not worthy of me (cfr. Matt. 10:38; 16:24), our Lord says. This self-denial with view for growth and eternal life is, in a certain way, at the heart of the Lenten season, which is fast drawing to a close.

But this self denial must be rooted firmly in that which IS at the very center of the Paschal Mystery: LOVE. In the First Reading we hear in the book of the prophet Jeremiah of the Lord promising to place his law in the hearts of the Israelites, one that would seal his relationship with them as a people particularly his own: “I will place my law within them and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they will be my people”. A law not written on tablets of stones but in hearts of flesh; not carved by hard instruments, but imprinted with the gentle movement of the Holy Spirit, finger of God’s right hand. This law is none other than the law of love.

But how do we define love? Before our eyes we see the Son of Man being handed over to the chief priests and the scribes, and the leaders of the people, scourged and maltreated, we see him crucified, and die on the cross, only to rise again. Man does not need to define what love is; God has defined it for him. Thinking about love, we are brought once again to consider the example of the seed that dies: love does not consist so much in possessing and having, than in the giving oneself. As such it presents a power not given to everybody. Everybody could receive and possess, but only the strongest and the purest of heart could give of themselves. And by his filial love and total obedience, Jesus on the Cross gives the supreme definition of what love is: the unselfish offering of his whole self as a gift to his Father, and as the price of our redemption. Herein lies a power which the devil never understood, but which served to allow him to recognize that he who hung on the Cross was the God who had defeated him, once and for all. In his generous self-giving, the Son of God gives those who unite their lives with him the same power to offer themselves and to participate in his redemption.

The Crucifixion by El Greco

The Cross is the definition to love that God gives: patient and kind, humble, not jealous nor boastful, not rejoicing at the wrong, but is happy in the truth; a love that bear all things and endures all things (cfr. 1 Co 13: 4-7). It is love because it is obedient, as we hear from the letter to the Hebrews, in the Second Reading: “Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered; and when he was made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him”.

May the proximity of the most solemn feasts of the Christian year serve us all the more to intensify our struggle to be worthy of God’s love, repeating incessantly that prayer of the Psalmist: create a clean heart in me, O God. Only a heart that is pure can renounce itself, and make itself capable of loving. A heart that has died to itself is the only one capable of rising again to new life, and live according to the new law of Love, in perfect imitation of the love and obedience of the Son for His Father.

Second Sunday of Lent: GLORY IS ACHIEVED NOBLY THROUGH SACRIFICE

“Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son and Our Lord?” In the baptismal liturgy, just as during the renewal of our baptismal promises, the minister asks us this question. The affirmation, our response “I do believe” to this very important question, points to the capital importance of knowing Christ, getting to know who He really is, because we cannot place our trust and confidence in someone whom we do not know. But then getting to know about Christ doesn’t only mean having a mental outline of his doctrines, in order to be able to give a ready answer to any exam in catechism class; knowing Christ means getting to live with him, or better still, allowing his own life to enter into our own so as to be transformed by it. In a way, the Christian life is a matter of responding to that question of Jesus Christ, posed to his apostles: Who do you say that I am?

Lent presents itself as a worthy avenue of getting to know our Lord more, the grace of God that makes itself manifest in this season of grace give us the light to see him more clearly, in the same way that the closest apostles of Jesus were able to see him in a different light, literally. In the Gospel reading this Sunday, we come to know of Jesus being accompanied by three of his disciples—Peter, James and John—up to Mt. Tabor. Standing there with them, he is transfigured, that is to say, there is a change in his appearance: his face, and even his own clothes, take on a dazzling beauty, such that the evangelist Mark, jotting down Peter’s memories of that event, describes them as whiter than any fuller could ever make them.  Before them, Jesus seems to converse with two figures from the religious tradition of Israel: Moses, who handed over the Law of God to his people, and Elijah, the greatest of Israel’s prophets. Then suddenly, with that impressive sight before them, they find themselves within a thick cloud and hear a voice thundering: This is my beloved Son. Listen to him. Terrified they fall to the ground. With the voice still ringing in their ears, they look up, and see Jesus, and only Jesus.

The transfiguration of the Lord on Mt. Tabor was another one of those moments in the life lived by Jesus with his disciples that allow his followers a glimpse into his identity. No doubt, some of them may have remembered the voice as the same one proclaiming Jesus to his Son when he rose over the waters of the Jordan. The appearance of the Lord, his clothes so white that no fuller on earth could achieve such a whitening effect, would lead them to conclude that such splendor was unearthly, divine.

The experience of the apostles had made them realize that this was no ordinary man they were dealing with. For indeed, nobody had ever taught with such authority in their synagogues, such that even wind and the waves obey him; it was unheard of that anybody could heal a man deaf and mute since birth, who could restore life to those who lay in death; someone who could even walk on the waters, something which the psalms themselves attributed only to God.

This was something that perhaps moved Peter to confess: You are the Christ, the Son of the living God! Aided and moved by the finger of God, the apostle, a witness to many of the wonders made by Jesus, made the confession that would transform him into the rock upon which the faith of the Church rests, the faith upon Jesus Christ, the Son of God (cfr. Mk. 1:1).

But then the experience that the disciples had with the Lord on Tabor wasn’t enough with the glory that they had witnessed. It is not enough to be a witness of the glory of the Son of God. As they were going down, the Lord told them not to tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man had risen from the dead (cfr.Mk.9:9). It is not enough to focus on the glory of Jesus Christ; it is also precise to know that the only way to share in that glory is through the royal way of the Cross. This was something that the apostles at first would not be able to understand. All of them had that conviction that glory was in store for them, because they had left everything and shared the life of the Master; that they were to share in his reign and in his power seemed certain. In fact, they quarreled over it, so much so, that the Master himself had to give them a lesson in humility in various moments of their life with Him. But what they didn’t know was that there was only one way to share in that glory, and that meant sharing in his passion and death as well.

That the Lord would have to undergo through the scandal of the Cross was too much for his disciples; it was to much for them to stomach, the fact that they descended from the glory of Tabor in order to climb Calvary. But later on, strengthened by the Paraclete, they would make the announcement of His death and resurrection the heart of their preaching, as we would hear in the Second Reading: Christ Jesus it is who died, or rather, was raised, who also is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us”(Rom. 8:34).

The faith of the apostles is the basis of the faith that we have. What we know of Christ Jesus is founded firmly on the testimony of the apostles themselves, one that continues to resound in our days; it is the same testimony made by the Church, holy, catholic and apostolic. It only in the Church that we can come to know who Christ really is. Nowadays it is easy to construct and image of Christ that is suspiciously attuned to our own convenience, one that, more often than not, seems to deny the cross. It is so easy for us to profess in a Christ who is all glorious, but who does not have the marks of the nails on his hands and feet, and the wound on his side. In an age where it is easy to personalize things, we can always run the risk of making a “personalized Christ”. But a Christ who is personalized in this sense, adjusted to our comfort, to our whims, is a false one, one that cannot save,  one that cannot show us the way to the glory of eternal life.

May our contemplation of Christ transfigured in glory strengthen us to follow by taking our cross and join it to His, knowing that glory is only to be achieved nobly through sacrifice. Amen. 

First Sunday of Lent: SPEAKING OF THE DEVIL

The glory of these forty days (borrowing the words of a song well-known and sung during this season), aside from giving us more opportunities to live the Christian calling to holiness through interior conversion, resides also on the fact that it serves as a prelude to the great baptismal liturgy within the Paschal Triduum (Holy Thursday evening to the Easter Vigil),celebrated on the night before Easter Sunday. Lent has a baptismal aspect, because it prepares us to celebrate the event of the suffering, death and resurrection of Our Lord, in which we all share in through our baptism. Celebrating this season with this in mind helps us to take better advantage of the graces that are offered to us during Lent.

“Do you renounce Satan and all his works?” Among the questions asked during the liturgy of baptism brings to mind the figure of the prince of darkness. Nowadays, the mention of the concept would bring about diverse reactions. People could be indifferent, or be vaguely (sometimes morbidly) interested, others cynical, while others would smile and would even imagine cute baby devils dressed in red and sporting cute little red horns (if there are cute cherubs, is it out of the way to imagine cute devils as well?) Speaking of the devil, I remember the late archbishop Fulton Sheen talking about a woman returning home after an afternoon of rather carefree shopping. When her husband saw the bill, he asked his wife rather testily: “The moment you tried on the dress, didn’t you tell the devil, “Get behind me Satan!”? The wife saucily replied, “Well as a matter of fact I did, and he told me it looked really good from the behind”.

The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. This Sunday brings us to consider the figure of Jesus being led into the silent wilderness. In the course of his public life he would seek refuge time and again in deserted spaces in order to be alone with his Father. But in the gospel episode, not only is he alone with his Father; in the desert the first confrontation between the Christ and Satan takes place. Jesus is tempted by the Devil, though not like us, tempted even from within through our human weakness. The Lord perceives the subtle insinuations of the enemy from the outside.

The Devil. Satan. Beelzebul. Belial. Lucifer. On June 29, 1972, Pope Paul VI caused consternation among many when he said in a homily that “the smoke of Satan has entered into the temple of God”. Many people where puzzled at the mention of the archenemy, not only perhaps because the fact that the Pope would mention it at all was perturbing, but also because many people had relegated the figure of the man’s greatest enemy to oblivion. But the fact is, the Devil continues to be alive in this modern day and age, and not only alive, but also active, very active. Pope John Paul II made mention of this fact when he made a visit to the sanctuary of St. Michael in Gargano, Italy, affirming that the devil is indeed alive and at work in the world, and that the disorder that we see in society, and the internal division in man is not only due to the effects of original sin, but is also because of the dark and infesting activity of Satan, of this saboteur of man’s equilibrium (cfr. May 24, 1987, Sanctuary of St. Michael, Gargano)

As we ponder on the encounter between the Light and the forces of darkness in the gospel this first Sunday of Lent we are invited to consider that we ourselves have to wage this battle. Nobody is immune from the attacks of the Devil; in fact this was the reason why the Lord chose to be attacked by Satan, because He desired to be identified with all of us who are always attacked and tempted, so that we may be identified with Him who came out victorious from the fight. Our Lenten journey through the desert alerts us to the fact that the Christian struggle for holiness is also a struggle against the forces of evil, evil that is not a mere cosmic force, but who is a personal being, an intelligent and powerful one, who has many names and assumes many faces so as to deceive and destroy. The devil is capable of inflicting us harm in many ways, but normally and more efficiently he acts in this world inducing us to abandon the side of God, to cease in the struggle to be holy, to leave the life of union with God by abandoning the life of prayer. He is the Tempter, and it is through temptation that he deceives and drags more souls hellbound.

Temptation in itself is not a sin, as we know; but one has to keep well in mind that between temptation and sin there is a fine line. Being realistic as a Christian entails accepting that life is of temptations: life is never a straight line. Christians of the Middle Ages had marble labyrinths etched on the floors of the great cathedrals that they built, not for any magical or esoteric reason, but rather to enunciate this fact: it is a journey through countless twists, turns and dead ends, but that finally leads to the center, the end of a long and difficult journey.

We ought not see temptation as a mere invitation to sin, though effectively it is. In Jesus Christ, this becomes an opportunity to defeat the Evil One. St. Augustine of Hippo, himself not a stranger to temptation, writes that “no one knows himself except through trial, or receives a crown except after victory, or strives except after an enemy or temptations”. A temptation is not merely an invitation to go down and bite the dust, as Satan would have us do; aided always with the grace of God—and our common sense—it is an opportunity to trust in the power of grace over wickedness, and rise up.

Faced with temptation, no one is ever alone, though the Devil would have us believe that we are. Commenting on his own experience of grace, St. Augustine comments that “the one who cries from the ends of the earth is in anguish, but is not left on his own”(Commentary on the Psalms). Ages back, St. Paul had said in the same vein: “where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more”(cfr. Rom 5:20). Always and in everywhere, the grace of God is ready for us, for as long as we ask for it in the opportune time. It is also very important of course to always avoid any occasion that could induce us to sin. If one plays with fire, as they say, expect to be burnt. Much common sense is needed for sanctity.

Finally, the episode of Jesus being tempted in the desert ends in victory; and this should be something that urges us on in the struggle. I would end by turning once again to the Doctor of Grace, St. Augustine: If in Christ we have been tempted, in him we overcome the devil. Do you think only of Christ’s temptations and fail to think of his victory? See yourself as tempted in him, and see yourself as victorious in him. Amen.

ON ASH WENDESDAY, THE LENTEN SEASON IN THE POPE'S OWN WORDS

Here are some excerpts from the Holy Father's Wednesday audience yesterday, which also happened to be the first day of this season of Lent:

...Using an expression that has become customary in the Liturgy, the Church calls the season we have entered today “Lent”; that is, the season of 40 days; and with a clear reference to Sacred Scripture, she thereby introduces us into a precise spiritual context.  Forty, in fact, is the symbolic number that the Old and New Testaments use to represent the salient moments in the life and faith of Israel. It is a number that expresses the time of waiting, of purification, of return to the Lord, of knowledge that God is faithful to His promises. This number does not represent an exact chronological period of time, marked by the sum of its days. Rather, it indicates a patient perseverance, a long trial, a sufficient length of time to witness the works of God and a time when it is necessary to decide to accept one’s responsibilities without further delay. It is a time for mature decisions.

....This ambivalence, a time of special closeness to God -- the time of first love -- as well as a time of temptation -- the temptation to return to paganism -- we surprisingly rediscover in Jesus’ earthy sojourn; naturally, however, without any compromise with sin. After His baptism of penance in the Jordan -- when He takes upon Himself the destiny of God’s Servant, who renounces himself and lives for others and takes his place among sinners in order to take upon himself the sin of the world -- Jesus goes into the desert and remains there for 40 days in profound union with the Father, thus repeating the history of Israel, all the rhythms of the 40 days or years I mentioned. This dynamic is a constant during the earthly life of Jesus, who always seeks moments of solitude in order to pray to His Father and to remain in intimate communion, in intimate solitude with Him, in exclusive communion with Him, then to return among the people. But in this time of “desert” and of special encounter with the Father, Jesus is exposed to danger and is assailed by temptation and the seduction of the Evil One, who proposes another Messianic way, one distant from God’s design, for it passes by way of power, success, and domination and not by way of the total gift of the Cross. These are the alternatives: a Messianism of power, of success, or a Messianism of love, of self-gift.

...This situation of ambivalence also characterizes the condition of the Church as she journeys in the “desert” of the world and of history. In this “desert,” we who believe certainly have the opportunity to have a profound experience of God, who strengthens the spirit, confirms faith, nourishes hope and inspires charity. It is an experience that makes us sharers in Christ’s victory over sin and death through His Sacrifice of love on the Cross.  But the “desert” is also a negative aspect of the reality that surrounds us: aridity; the poverty of words of life and values; secularism and cultural materialism, which enclose people within the worldly horizons of an existence bereft of all reference to the transcendent. This is also the environment in which even heaven above us is obscured, for it is covered by the clouds of egoism, misunderstanding and deception. Despite this, also for the Church today, time spent in the desert can be transformed into a time of grace, for we have the certainty that God can make the living water that quenches thirst and brings refreshment gush forth even from the hardest rock.

The Church’s Lenten discipline is meant to help deepen our life of faith and our imitation of Christ in his paschal mystery. In these forty days may we draw nearer to the Lord by meditating on his word and example, and conquer the desert of our spiritual aridity, selfishness and materialism.

NOW IS THE ACCEPTABLE TIME! Considerations at the start of the season of Lent

The words of the Apostle Paul stir us once again as we enter into the liturgical time of Lent. This is another of the means that the Church proportions to us as an aid in the work of our sanctification. This is one thing that we have to keep in mind as we begin this tiempo fuerte, as they say it in Spanish, this opportune time. It’s a fact that many people look to Lent as a time of penance, a time of sacrifice, self-denial, mortification and good works. A lot of us associate this season with meatless Fridays and violet vestments. All of these is correct, however, when we think that this all there is to this liturgical season, we would be giving more attention to the wrappings of the gift rather than to the contents of the gift itself. For truly, Lent is a gift given to us by the liturgical tradition of the Church; it is a time set aside especially so that we may live more intensely our vocation to holiness. Lent is all about sanctification; it’s about making oneself more beautiful, not merely through one’s effort, but also importantly with the grace that comes from the Lord, without whom we can do nothing, apart from whom we cannot bear fruit (cfr. Jn 15: 5).

Responding to the universal call to holiness is what Lent is all about: all of the traditional practices that we have have their root in this. We fast and abstain, not because we want to be hungry, but because we wish to atone for our sins, which are obstacles to the grace of God, and to disciple ourselves. we live mortification more intensely, not for any masochistic reason—because we love to inflict pain ourselves—but rather because we want to unite ourselves with the passion of the Lord on the Cross, which is the only way to holiness. We put more effort in living the virtue of charity, because in doing so we begin to be more like God, who is love (cfr. 1 Jn 3:14).

As St.Paul had expressed it, there is no better time in responding to this call to be holy than the present moment. In God there is no past nor future, only the present. As they say, God, for all of His omniscience, His being all-knowing, knows only adverb of time: NOW. Saying “yes” to God’s call to share His life, even while still here on earth (making our life a prelude to Heaven), means accepting it NOW. We have to respond positively to this invitation in the “now” of my daily, present condition, whether as a student, a banker, a teacher, a parent, a spouse, a priest, a policeman,  a politician: each in his or her own particular circumstance in life; concretely: in one’s dealings with other people, in one’s job, in how one uses his free time, in one’s conversations with others. But all of these will have their foundation in the most important relationship that he or she could ever have: that intimate relationship with the Lord.

I would wish to share with you certain insights that I myself have received as a fruit of prayer and reflection. Lent is a time so rich that prudent planning and much attention could allow us to live these Lenten weeks (there are five at least) to our best advantage, not only spiritual, but also (and why not?) human.

1.      As we begin to climb this sacred mountain towards the peak that is Easter, let us be aided by how the ancient Christians, as we could see from the teachings of the Church Fathers have understood Lent. Earlier on we have mentioned that everything is rooted in our struggle towards holiness. For Christians, back then as nowadays, holiness is none else but identification with Christ, and initially, there is no other time when the Christian is so much like Christ than in his or her baptism. Lent is the long journey that early catechumens (people preparing themselves for baptism) had to make before being baptized. One has to walk for forty days and nights through the hot and arid desert of repentance, before being able to be submerged in the waters of new life and grace, which are those of the sacrament of baptism. All throughout Lent, we walk under cover of darkness, until we come at last to the celebration of that morning that knows no end: Easter, when the whole person is bathed in the light of the Risen Christ. No wonder that the early Christians—especially those from the East—also considered it as the Illumination: one closer step into sharing the divinity of God. In baptism we have been inserted into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ: we die with Him and we rise with Him to new life. Lent therefore is a time for us to be reminded of the promises that we had made (through the faith of the Church) in Baptism, which we have repeated in Confirmation, and which we renew in the Eucharist: to reject sin and to accept a life lived in God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To live as a child of God, a member of the Body of Christ that is the Church, and as the temple where the Spirit of God has His home.

2.     And talking about us being temples of the Holy Spirit allows us to be reminded also of the fact that God nearer to us than we to ourselves, according to that famous phrase of St. Augustine, that great lover of the Lord. This ought to encourage us to go to Him more often in prayer, most especially during this time: Lent is decidedly a time of prayer and for prayer. Prayer is nothing more than being with the One who loves as the most, paraphrasing the words of another great lover, St. Teresa of Avila. It’s not all about methods or techniques or formulas (though these may help): prayer is more about BEING; it’s saying “Lord, I’m here”! It’s imitating Mary our Mother who said “behold the handmaid of the Lord”. What better example of prayer could we have than our Mother, who was always there in the silence of God’s presence, listening, contemplating, in worship. It is a privileged time for us to talk to the Lord about our own struggles, of those whom we hold dear, of those who make us suffer greatly; a time to express to Him our dreams and our hopes, a time to ask for strength, to be invigorated. God’s presence always energizes, always gives strength. Didn’t he not say: “Come to me, all you who are weary and are burdened, and I will refresh you”? What heart could reject such an invitation? Lent gives us the opportunity to rest in God praying. It is always a good idea to take advantage of retreats usually given during this time: these are small pockets of prayer. With these, we could also establish similar pockets of prayer throughout our day: what are five minutes, fifteen minutes that we take off from our daily schedule? With five, fifteen or even thirty (depending on one’s condition and schedule) minutes with the Lord, we have nothing to lose; on the contrary, we have a lot to gain.

3.     Lent is a time for living the virtue of charity, especially with others, more intensely, remembering that charity covers a multitude of sins (cfr. 1 P 4:8). The Holy Father, as is his practice every start of Lent, has addressed to each of us a letter, in which he precisely encourages us to live these days of Lent concerning ourselves not only with our own needs, but also with those of the people who live around us. But this concern is not only limited to material needs; it is also important that we help each other out in our personal struggle to live our common vocation to be holy. It is not enough that we practice the corporal works of mercy (feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, visit the imprisoned, bury the dead); it is precise that we do the spiritual works as well (counsel the doubtful, instruct the ignorant, admonish sinners, comfort the afflicted, forgive offenses, bear wrongs patiently, pray for the living and the dead). Pope Benedict XVI observed that “today in general, we are very sensitive to the idea of charity and caring about the physical and material well-being of others, but almost completely silent about our spiritual responsibility towards our brothers and sisters” (Message for Lent 2012). We have been inattentive of the fact that the brother or sister beside us is not only a body, but he is also an embodied spirit, a creature with a rational soul that needs to be placed in contact with God’s grace, a soul that also cries out for salvation. Whenever we try to bring not only ourselves but also our loved ones into the right path, always with love and affection, keeping far from an arrogant, know-it-all and holier-than-thou attitude; whenever we make it easier for others to encounter Christ, THEN, we could say that for one part, we are living well the spirit of Lent. That we excel in love is important, for what is a Christian without love? These days, here in Pamplona, we are having perfectly blue skies, but very cold weather, such that even the sun is incapable of warming us on the street. For a Filipino (as I have commented to a Spaniard friend), a sun that does not warm one up is unthinkable: so is the Christian who does not love. In what concrete way could I live more intensely this concern for others?

4.     One cannot talk enough, of course, of the fact that Lent is also a privileged time of reconciliation with God. When was the last time that you confessed? When was the last time that you hurled all that baggage that you’ve been carrying for so long, into the bottomless abyss of Divine Mercy? Nobody can cast that weight from you but yourself; nobody can heal your burdened heart than God Himself.

My prayer is that the end of this season of penance may find us with lives patterned after the passion and death of Jesus Christ, and with hearts that are pure so as to be able to celebrate with joy the feast of the Resurrection of Our Lord.

ASH WEDNESDAY 2012

22 FEBRUARY 2012