by Leela Ramdeen, Chair, CCSJ and Director, CREDI
“May the season of Lent in this Jubilee year be lived more intensely as a privileged moment to celebrate and experience God’s mercy.” (Pope Francis)
CCSJ urges readers to reflect on Pope Francis’ 2016 Lenten Message. His theme this year is: I desire mercy, and not sacrifice (Matthew 9:13) – The works of mercy on the road of the Jubilee.
It is divided into three parts:
1. Mary, the image of a Church which evangelises because she is evangelised.
2. God’s covenant with humanity: a history of mercy.
3. The works of mercy.
The Holy Father reminds us that “the season of Lent in this Jubilee Year is a favourable time to overcome our existential alienation by listening to God’s word and by practising the works of mercy. In the corporal works of mercy we touch the flesh of Christ in our brothers and sisters who need to be fed, clothed, sheltered, visited; in the spiritual works of mercy – counsel, instruction, forgiveness, admonishment and prayer – we touch more directly our own sinfulness. The corporal and spiritual works of mercy must never be separated.”
In the past he has also reminded us that “Lent is a time of grace, a time to convert and live out our baptism fully.” To facilitate conversion; to change our hearts and minds and turn our lives around, allowing the Holy Spirit to work in and through us, we need to reflect sincerely on all the things that prevent us from living out our baptismal promises.
During Lent, find time to pray. Prayer helps us to draw closer to God; to clothe ourselves in the armour of God so that we can resist temptation; to practise virtue; and to obtain God’s grace.
Today’s Gospel (Luke 4:1-13) reminds us of the need to follow in Christ’s footsteps and resist temptation. Don’t underestimate the power of temptation. “Bad house” will always be calling us, as the saying goes.
Pope Francis said in one of his homilies in Feb 2014, “temptation looks for another to keep it company, it is contagious,” and “in growing, in being contagious, the temptation closes us in an environment where you can’t get out easily… when we are tempted, we do not hear the Word of God, we don’t hear. We don’t understand… temptation closes us in; it takes away any ability to see ahead, it closes every horizon, and so leads us to sin. When we are tempted, only the Word of God, the Word of Jesus saves us, hearing that Word that opens the horizon… He is always willing to teach us how to escape from temptation. And Jesus is great because He not only brings us out of temptation, but gives us more confidence.”
During this Lenten period, let us take up the challenge as Catholics to become who we are and to lead others to Christ through our witness. Pope Francis stresses in his message “the primacy of prayerful listening to God’s Word, especially his prophetic word.”
Listening to God’s word helps us to be merciful like the Father. God has shown us mercy by sending his only Son, Jesus, to save us. He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy (Titus 3:5).
Lent, as the Holy Father says in his Message, is a time to “reawaken our conscience, too often grown dull in the face of poverty, and to enter more deeply into the heart of the Gospel where the poor have a special experience of God’s mercy…the poor are our brothers or sisters in Christ…” He urges us to “devote ourselves to what the Church’s tradition calls the spiritual and corporal works of mercy…on such things will we be judged.”
Our Christian faith requires more than prayer though. We are called to walk with the ‘two feet of Christian service’: Works of mercy/charity and works of social action (the promotion of justice).
Throughout our scriptures there are references that inspire us to do good works. Look around you. There is much to do to address the social ills in our society – in your own homes, parishes/communities, educational institutions, T&T and the wider world.
It was Pope Paul VI who said in his encyclical, “On the Development of Peoples”, that the “world is sorely ill.” We must live as merciful Christians if we are to play our part to heal T&T/the world. The internet is full of good examples e.g. “56 ways to be merciful during the Jubilee Year of Mercy”.
As Pope Francis says in his Message: “Let us not waste this season of Lent, so favourable a time for conversion!”
