THE WORD IN LENT - Ash Wednesday
February 14: Through the desert, to Freedom... God leads us.
Joel 2: 12-18; 2 Corinthians 5:20 - 6:2; Matthew 6:1-6,16-18
We begin the holiest of all seasons within the liturgical year: the season of Lent. This year the Holy Father invites us to reflect on loving reminder - that through the desert God leads us to freedom.
Broken hearts, fasting stomachs, weeping eyes, mourning spirits, trembling hands and bending knees - these are not signs of fright nor attempts to appease; these are responses to a recognition of the mercy and compassion of God, the tender love and affection that the Lord extends to you and me despite the dull and drear that have set in, between God and us. It could be either because of our irreflective activism or spiritual lethargy! The reason be what it could, the fact is God has never failed to listen to us at the favourable time, on the day of our salvation!
Indeed, this is the favourable time; this is the day of salvation. Let us begin this journey, the journey of reflecting on the journey of our life! Yes, Lent is not a journey that starts and ends in itself. It is a journey, a special phase of journey that is given to us every year, to reflect on the spiritual journey of our life, where through the desert, God leads us to freedom.
The deserts are spiritual patches of the journey, special moments of grace however difficult and trying they are. Lent comes to make us understand how important these deserts are, that we may really journey through them with the spirit that the Lord wishes us to have. That we may understand that deserts are not places where we feel deserted, but they are places where we desert everything that binds us, to lift our eyes to the Lord, to refocus our minds on the original call, to resume our ontological journey towards that communion with the Lord, the true and total freedom. And another important element not to be forgotten, it is God who leads us! God leads us by hand, even in the midst of the desert, specially in the moments of the desert.
Let us wish each other a profound and peaceful journey, a journey through the desert, where God leads us to freedom, the freedom of the beloved children of God.