Appeared in The Catholic Virginian March 20, 2000

The Lenten Season

Lent comes late this year. I just learned recently that Easter Sunday, which falls on April 23 this year, comes later in the year than it has since 1943. I always look forward to the Lenten and Easter seasons because I’ll be meeting around the diocese with those who will be coming into the Church at the Easter Vigil and will then make the circuit for Confirmations between Easter and Pentecost. This year, Ash Wednesday falls on March 8 during which I’ll be in India under the auspices of the Christian Children’s Fund.

The days are beginning to get longer as spring approaches. The origins of the word "Lent" refer to the lengthening of days as winter comes to an end. Lent is a graced moment, a kyros experience especially during this Great Jubilee Year 2000, which is a year of the Lord’s favor. Lent is an occasion for personal renewal, a time of conversion and reconciliation. We are summoned by the Church to enter into the very mystery of our redemption through the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus. We call this the Paschal Mystery, Christ’s passing over from death to life, which is a reality that involves and touches all of us whether we recognize it or not.

During Lent, we are called upon – by prayer, fasting and works of charity – to lose something of ourselves so we can discover our true selves; to empty ourselves so that Jesus will fill up the emptiness in our life. I firmly believe that how we observe the six weeks of Lent reflects what meaning and importance we give to living a faith-filled life. Like Christ, who went into the desert for "forty days and forty nights", we are to allow the silence of God to speak to our minds and hearts.

Pope John Paul II, in his Lenten message, gives special emphasis to our own personal renewal of faith, hope and charity. Faith allows us to go beyond immediate appearances in order to discover God’s loving presence in creation and to experience the mystery of God’s love for all. In moments of quiet solitude – a luxury in frenetic pace of today’s living – we will be transformed by the power of God in our life. Only a vibrant faith can set us on a path that leads to fullness of life in Christ. The saving action of the Spirit will awaken us from mediocrity, complacency and indifference. It will free us from the enslavement of selfishness and self-centeredness in order to allow God to have
prominence in our lives.

Yes, we are called to walk in faith despite the many temptations to discouragement and disappointment. We undergo conversion by renewing our fidelity to Christ. We will experience his forgiveness and his saving work in us. Thus, the Paschal Mystery becomes our very own as we share in Christ’s victory over sin and death. In this way, we will have a new communion with God as well as a oneness with the community of believers. With this unity, we will proclaim and live, with renewed fervor, the very mystery of salvation in Christ.

Lent should be a time for the renewal of hope. I consider hope a most crucial virtue that we all need. Pope John Paul II is to me the great prophet of hope. He rose from the ashes of Poland to become the head of a world-wide Church for 3 billion people. What people like most about our Holy Father is that, despite all odds, he has a charismatic sense that God is still the ruler of the universe and the Lord of all. Pope John Paul II rose above the ashes of his native country, he escaped death on innumerable occasions. This says to me that God has not abandoned our world today. Instead, God is a vital part of our history because of his son, Jesus Christ, who is alive
among us through the Spirit.

Yes, there is much to bemoan in our world today. Violence seems to reign in so many parts of our globe. Yet, I find that there is an innate goodness among all people. For us, to rise above the ashes of evil around us, means rising out of despair with the confident certainty that God’s promise will be fulfilled in Jesus who said, "I will be with you until the end of time." Hope leads to the courage to go beyond feelings of self-doubt so we can be about the works of the Kingdom, the reign of God in our world.

Lent is a time for the renewal of the virtue of charity. Charity to me means that we are aware of others. Rather than judging them because of their misery, we want to reach out to them in their lack of basic necessities. They are the victims of hunger, violence and injustice. They live all around us, even if their existence is impervious to us. Our attitude toward others is most critically important. Do we see them as an opportunity to become the person of Christ to others who heard the cries of suffering and despairing? The worst thing we can do during the Lenten season is to be about our pious practices and feel good about ourselves and yet be insensitive to the needs of the poor and – worse still – be insensitive in our attitudes and judgments about them.

I believe that you and I can and must become the sacrament of God’s presence to others. You and I are called to become the instrument or channel of God’s abiding grace in our world today. As we become transformed by God’s grace during this Lenten season, may we become effective signs of God’s loving presence – signs of enduring hope, lifting others out of despair. May we wear with pride and conviction the ashes of Ash Wednesday – believing and proclaiming trust in God’s promise that we can die to self and become new life in Christ. May those ashes give witness to our Great Jubilee proclamation that Jesus Christ is the Lord of all life – yesterday, today and forever.