Posted On 2013-02-21 In Something to think about

Live the season of Lent: encounter, love, and mission

ARGENTINA, F. Guillermo Carmona. I begin these lines with gratitude for the courageous gesture of the Holy Father, who discovered God’s will in the “voice of being” (his frailty) and in the “voice of the soul” (inner certainty) and he is stepping aside to continue the struggle from another trench:  that of prayer and inner giving of self.  The reason for this letter is to share some motivations with you to live a better Lenten season this year.

 

 

It is likely that the word “Lent” awakens very different sensations than those of “Advent” or “Easter”.  We have almost unilaterally been told – that the important thing about this season is to renounce, fast, abstain from meat, mortify the senses, and to say sad and sorrowful prayers.

Without denying the “sorrowful mysteries”, that we especially recall during Lent, and without denying the importance of certain devotions such as praying the Stations of the Cross, I would like to look at Lent with you from a different perspective:  that of encounter, love and mission.

1. The meaning of Lent is an encounter with God, who loves us so much, that he sent his Son for love.

We are travelers and pilgrims.  The reason for this search is the daily experience of limitations:  physical, psychological, spiritual and religious.  Beyond these restraints, there is an ancestral and inalienable desire– the search for someone who will really love us, without “yes, but”, unrestrictedly including our lights and shadows, struggles, neurosis and madness– someone for whom I am the most important.

No human person can completely satisfy this hunger.  It cannot be done, because he/she is also conditioned by his/her needs and limits; this makes it impossible to love in absolute freedom and selflessness.

This search of man is combined with God’s desire to interact with us.  It is the Father’s embrace and kiss for the child – for each one of us – that can fill this existential desire.  This encounter is given in Jesus Christ; He is the unconditional gift.  And the moment where this love is made sign and light is on the cross and in his resurrection.  Theologians call this truth – the passion, death and resurrection of Christ – the “Easter mystery.”

Lent, these forty days, is a time to garner in the search and the finding in this love that is fulfilled in the cross and in Easter.  The best way to live it is to be concerned with finding a sign of God’s love every day and to be grateful for it.  This discovery returns us the Father: it is the “metanoia”, a Greek word that is used often and it is defined as “to return”.  It is to return to God’s love that cures the wounds in Christ and in Mary, it softens the sorrows, it accompanies us in the nights of insomnia, it dries the tears of incomprehension and disappointment

2. Lent gives us the awareness that there is no love without renunciation or sacrifice.

“There is no greater love, than to give one’s life,” we emotionally sing in our liturgy.  The text invokes John 15:13 that we all know.  It is easy to say it, but how difficult it is to live it!  But it is an experience of daily life of whoever loves is willing to sacrifice him/herself for the person he/she loves.  On the contrary, there is no love; but rather, egoism:  it is a wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing.

Lent is a time to express our love to God, which renounces what dishonors his love. The dark dimensions of our life are what can mar the joy of the loved one:  the small addictions, constant egoisms, inability to see our log to criticize the speck of others, dishonesty in the sexual life, excesses of food and drink…Whoever loves is willing to give joy to the loved one, and therefore renounce that which causes disappointment.

Lent is a time for purification and struggle.  It is a time to conquer the temptations of the desert like Jesus. It is the ideal space to look within and – without deceit – to recognize how much there is to chisel.  In this light, it is good to take one or another resolution to overcome something that enslaves us or makes us dependent.  It is the daring and the sincerity during Lent that makes us free, just like all truth.

3. Lent is the ideal time to go on mission with Mary.

It is not enough to beat one’s breast and discover our miseries.  It is necessary to go out to sow hope.  It is urgent to proclaim the good news of grace and joy because Jesus gave himself on the cross and on Easter morning he was rescued from death.

The Rosary Campaign is born from the heart of the night, of that tragic and holy Friday:  “Behold your son…behold your mother”.  If John and Mary had not been at Golgotha, we would not have a reason to take her to hidden places like a sign of light, life and redemption:

“Let me present the cross and the picture of Mary
to the nations as a sign of redemption
so that the two who stand as one in the Father’s  plan of love
may never be divided”. (Heavenwards, p.90).

Lent is the time to carry the Cross and picture of Mary.  Like the “Unity Cross,” the Rosary Campaign wants to help the Mother hold the chalice of the blood that redeems.  Lent is the time for the apostolate and not only purification; it is the language of mercy:  where sin abounded, grace abounds all the more.

Every time we take the Pilgrim MTA during this Lent, we know that we are reliving the “Easter mystery”.  What else is proper for the night, than the anticipation of day, for winter the shout for spring and for the cross the sign of someone who conquered forever?

I wish you a blessed Lent and an Easter season full of joy, peace, hope and the life of the morning of Resurrection.

Taken from the monthly newsletter to the Pilgrim Mother Campaign missionaries, Argentina


English translation: Celina M. Garza, San Antonio, Texas

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