Your Annual Invitation
Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
The Season of Lent is a great gift for all who are serious about their faith. Lent invites us to detach from the many things that distract us from being fully alive and to orient ourselves toward our eternal destiny. The traditional disciplines of Lent: prayer, fasting and almsgiving are spiritual tools to help us become more what we were made to be.
Prayer
Prayer helps slow us down. It raises our minds and hearts from the day-to-day frenzy of life and toward the things that have eternal import. Regular prayer brings peace, connects us with our Source and reorients us to our Destiny. It helps us see more like God sees.
Fasting
Fasting helps us to detach from our obsessions. It helps us achieve a better degree of self-mastery and distances us from our addictions to food, pleasure, fame, control and comfort. It creates more room in our lives for God and for others. It brings greater freedom.
Almsgiving
Almsgiving helps us to be humbler. It turns us out of ourselves and redirects us to the needs of others. It helps free us from narcissism and causes us to be generous, with time, talent and treasure. It helps us to imitate the self-sacrificing love of Jesus that was revealed on the cross.
Third Sunday in Lent
The readings for this Third Sunday of Lent speak of God’s desire to save his people. From the story of Moses and the enslaved Hebrews to the Gospel where Jesus speaks of God’s patience, we know of God’s desire to share his life with us. But the readings also remind us of the need to repent. Sadly, over the past millennia, many have turned in on themselves and rejected God’s loving offer of salvation. The Season of Lent is the annual invitation to turn back to the Lord; to repent from what threatens our salvation and to embrace the truths of the Gospel in our daily lives.
This weekend at the 5pm Sunday Mass, those preparing to enter the Church at Easter will celebrate “the Scrutinies” where the Church prays that their hearts will be open to deeper conversion to Christ. The readings for that Mass may be different from the other Masses that day. (See this Blog Post for more information).
Sincerely yours in Christ Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life,
