Below is Pope Francis' message for Lent 2021: “Look, we are going up to Jerusalem... (Mt 20:18). “Lent: a time to renew faith, hope and charity.”
Below is Pope Francis' message for Lent 2021:
“Look, we are going up to Jerusalem... (Mt 20:18). “Lent: a time to renew faith, hope and charity.”
February 10, 2022
When Jesus announces to his disciples his passion, death and resurrection, to fulfill the will of the Father, he reveals to them the deep meaning of his mission and exhorts them to associate with it, for the salvation of the world.
Traveling the Lenten path, which will lead us to the Easter celebrations, let us remember the One who “humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even a death on a cross” (Phil 2:8). In this time of conversion let us renew our faith, quench our thirst with the “living water” of hope and receive with an open heart the love of God that makes us brothers and sisters in Christ. On Easter night we will renew the promises of our Baptism, to be reborn as new men and women, thanks to the work of the Holy Spirit. However, the Lent itinerary, like the entire Christian journey, is already under the light of the Resurrection, which animates the feelings, attitudes and decisions of those who wish to follow Christ.
Fasting, prayer and almsgiving, as presented by Jesus in his preaching (cf. Mt 6:1-18), are the conditions and expression of our conversion. The path of poverty and deprivation (fasting), the look and gestures of love towards the wounded man (almsgiving) and the filial dialogue with the Father (prayer) allow us to embody a sincere faith, a living hope. and an operating charity.
1. Faith calls us to accept the Truth and to be witnesses, before God and before our brothers and sisters.
In this season of Lent, welcoming and living the Truth that was manifested in Christ means above all letting ourselves be reached by the Word of God, which the Church transmits to us from generation to generation. This Truth is not a construction of the intellect, intended for a few chosen, superior or illustrious minds, but it is a message that we receive and can understand thanks to the intelligence of the heart, open to the greatness of God who loves us before ourselves. Let's be aware of it. This Truth is Christ himself who, fully assuming our humanity, became the Way - demanding but open to all - that leads to the fullness of Life.
Fasting lived as an experience of deprivation, for those who live it with simplicity of heart leads to rediscovering the gift of God and understanding our reality as creatures who, in His image and likeness, find their fulfillment in Him. By experiencing accepted poverty, those who fast become poor with the poor and “accumulate” the wealth of love received and shared. Understood and put into practice in this way, fasting contributes to loving God and neighbor inasmuch as, as Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches us, love is a movement that focuses attention on the other, considering them as one with oneself (cf. Letter enc. Fratelli tutti, 93).
Lent is a time to believe, that is, to receive God into our lives and allow him to “make his home” in us (cf. Jn 14:23). Fasting means freeing our existence from everything that hinders us, including the saturation of information - true or false - and consumer products, to open the doors of our hearts to Him who comes to us poor of everything, but "full of grace and truly” (Jn 1:14): the Son of God Savior.
2. Hope as “living water” that allows us to continue our path.
The Samaritan woman, whom Jesus asks to give him a drink at the well, does not understand when He tells her that he could offer her “living water” (Jn 4:10). At first, naturally, she thinks of material water, while Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit, the one whom He will give in abundance in the Paschal Mystery and who instills in us the hope that He does not disappoint. By announcing his passion and death Jesus already announces hope, when he says: “And on the third day he will rise again” (Mt 20:19). Jesus tells us about the future that the Father's mercy has opened wide. Waiting with Him and thanks to Him means believing that history does not end with our mistakes, our violence and injustice, nor with the sin that crucifies Love. It means satiating ourselves with the Father's forgiveness in His open Heart.
In the current context of concern in which we live and in which everything seems fragile and uncertain, talking about hope could seem like a provocation. The time of Lent is made to wait, to turn our gaze again to the patience of God, who continues to care for his Creation, while we often mistreat it (cf. Enc. Letter Laudato si', 32-33 ; 43-44). It is hope in reconciliation, to which Saint Paul passionately exhorts us: “We ask you to be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20). By receiving forgiveness, in the Sacrament that is at the heart of our conversion process, we also become spreaders of forgiveness: having received it ourselves, we can offer it, being able to live an attentive dialogue and adopting a behavior that comforts others. who is injured. God's forgiveness, also through our words and gestures, allows us to live an Easter of brotherhood.
In Lent, let us be more attentive to “say words of encouragement, that comfort, that strengthen, that console, that stimulate”, instead of “words that humiliate, that sadden, that irritate, that despise” (Letter in Fratelli tutti [FT], 223). Sometimes, to give hope, it is enough to be “a kind person, who puts aside his anxieties and urgencies to pay attention, to give a smile, to say a word that stimulates, to enable a space for listening in the midst of so much indifference” (ibid., 224).
In the recollection and silence of prayer, we are given hope as inspiration and interior light, which illuminates the challenges and decisions of our mission: this is why it is essential to recollect ourselves in prayer (cf. Mt 6:6) and find, in intimacy, to the Father of tenderness.
Living Lent with hope means feeling that, in Jesus Christ, we are witnesses of the new time, in which God “makes all things new” (cf. Rev 21:1-6). It means receiving the hope of Christ who gives his life on the cross and that God resurrects on the third day, “always ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks us for a reason for our hope” (cf. 1 Pet 3:15). .
3. Charity, lived in the footsteps of Christ, showing care and compassion for each person, is the highest expression of our faith and our hope.
Charity is happy to see that the other grows. For this reason, it suffers when the other is distressed: alone, sick, homeless, despised, in need... Charity is the impulse of the heart that makes us leave ourselves and that creates the bond of cooperation and of communion.
“From 'social love' it is possible to move towards a civilization of love to which we can all feel summoned. Charity, with its universal dynamism, can build a new world, because it is not a sterile feeling, but the best way to achieve effective paths of development for all” (FT, 183).
Charity is a gift that gives meaning to our lives and thanks to it we consider those who are deprived of what is necessary as a member of our family, friend, brother. The little we have, if we share it with love, never ends, but is transformed into a reserve of life and happiness. This is what happened with the flour and oil of the widow of Zarephath, who gave bread to the prophet Elijah (cf. 1 Kings 17:7-16); and with the loaves that Jesus blessed, he broke and gave to the disciples to distribute among the people (cf. Mark 6:30-44). So it is with our alms, whether large or small, if we give it with joy and simplicity.
Living a Lent of charity means caring for those who are in conditions of suffering, abandonment or anguish due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In such an uncertain context about the future, let us remember the word that God addresses to his Servant: “ Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you” (Is 43:1), let us offer with our charity a word of trust, so that the other feels that God loves him as a son.
“Only with a gaze whose horizon is transformed by charity, which leads one to perceive the dignity of the other, are the poor discovered and valued in their immense dignity, respected in their own style and in their culture and, therefore, truly integrated into society” (FT, 187).
Dear brothers and sisters: Each stage of life is a time to believe, hope and love. This call to live Lent as a path of conversion and prayer, and to share our goods, helps us to reconsider, in our community and personal memory, the faith that comes from the living Christ, the hope animated by the breath of the Spirit and love , whose inexhaustible source is the merciful heart of the Father.
May Mary, Mother of the Savior, faithful at the foot of the cross and in the heart of the Church, sustain us with her caring presence, and may the blessing of the risen Christ accompany us on the path to the Easter light.
Rome, Saint John Lateran, November 11, 2020, memory of Saint Martin of Tours.
I entrust all the sick and their families to the intercession of Mary