CathInfo.com

AI translation

A Lenten Exhortation

"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen. We exhort you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For God saith: In an accepted time have I heard thee, and in the day of salvation have I helped thee." Lent is indeed an accepted time. These are days of salvation, days of grace. But favorable for what? To be converted. That is the goal. We read in the epistle of Ash Wednesday this prophecy of Joel: "Be converted to me with all your heart, in fasting, and in weeping, and in mourning. And rend your hearts, and not your garments, saith the Lord Almighty."

Lent is indeed a time of conversion. Conversion means a "turning around." To be converted is to turn toward God because one had turned away from Him. Now, one can turn away from God in two ways. First, if one sins gravely, then one turns away from God totally through mortal sin. God no longer lives in the soul that has thus turned away from Him; she has become an enemy of God. And then, one can turn away from God without excluding Him, through lukewarmness, laxity, and the multiplication of deliberate venial faults against which one no longer fights.

It follows, therefore, that there are two kinds of conversions. One is converted first by returning to God from whom one was cut off—that is, by passing from the state of sin, mortal sin, to the state of grace, recovering the friendship of God lost through grave sin. This is recovered through a good confession, and then by the efforts that follow or precede that confession. But one can also be converted by passing from an imperfect, mediocre, or lax Christian life—or simply a holy life, but nothing more—to a holier, more fervent, and more faithful life.

You see, then, that we are all concerned. All of us must be converted, and converted unceasingly. This is why Lent is welcome and why it is important. In all these cases, Lent is a privileged occasion, an effective means to identify the movement of return to God and to draw closer to Him. And more than at any other time, the Church proposes to us, during this Lent, "instruments of conversion," as Saint Benedict says in his Rule, with a truly maternal insistence.
She summons us more often to prayer. She multiplies her exhortations. Read, for example, all the prayers of the Missal, the warnings, the teachings in the epistles, the Gospels, and the counsels. She encourages us to enter into ourselves, to examine our consciences, to confess our sins, to do generous penance, and to take effective resolutions. Lent, in other words, is like a great retreat. Every year, the Church proposes this retreat to us. And one can never say enough about the richness of this period, of this liturgical season.
The liturgy of Lent is richer than in any other period of the Christian year. Each day, the Church proposes a proper Mass, with carefully selected texts—texts many of which are given at no other time of the year. It is only during this time of Lent that we can read these texts. Thus, she shows us, for example, the great figures of the Old Testament: Isaac on this first Sunday of Lent, Jacob next Sunday, Joseph on the third Sunday, and Moses on the fourth.
But above all, she shows us Jesus, walking day after day toward His Calvary, entering into battle against evil and the powers of evil, withdrawing from the world to fast and pray for forty days. This is today's Gospel. He teaches us by His example how we must die to ourselves, tame our flesh, and conquer the world. And finally, we see Jesus offering Himself as a sacrifice of propitiation for the salvation of our souls. That will be at the end of Lent, during Holy Week, where we can follow almost hour by hour the sufferings of Jesus who offers Himself for the redemption of our sins.

If we apply ourselves to scrutinizing, day after day, the treasures of this liturgy, how can we remain indifferent? How can we not emerge transformed? But practically, how are we to be converted? The prophet Joel, as we read just now and on Ash Wednesday, tells us: by fasting, by weeping, by tears, by rending our hearts and not our garments. The ancients in the East, indeed, as a sign of mourning, rent their garments when they were struck by some great misfortune. It was an outward sign of repentance.
But we must not be content with outward signs of sorrow or regret for our sins. God asks of us an interior repentance, compunction of heart, sorrow of the soul, or as it is said in the Miserere, the fiftieth Psalm: "a contrite and humbled heart." Contrite—contritum in Latin—means crushed. Our hearts must be as if crushed with sorrow because of our sins. It is not a matter of playing the "dolorist." This pain is interior. It must be sincere, real, and deep, because we understand the gravity of sin. We have sinned against God; we have offended Him. "Against thee only have I sinned, and done evil before thee."

And this feeling of contrition must not remain at the stage of simple sentiment. It must be translated into acts. We must expiate and repair our sins. How shall we do this? Well, through penance. Lent is a time of penance—by the Sacrament of Penance, but also by the virtue of penance. For penance is the proper virtue of those who have sinned and who, because of this, have merited a penalty (peine). Penalty, penance: it is the same word. Lent, precisely, is the time of penance par excellence.
How, then, are we to exercise this penance? By mortifying ourselves. Mortification is for repairing our past sins and for preventing possible new falls. Mortification is something we hardly like. The word frightens; it frightens our natural sensibility. Etymologically, "to mortify" means to put to death, to make die. Mortification consists in putting to death within us all that is evil. We must first be aware of it: sin, bad habits, the roots of sin—that is, all those evil tendencies that pull us toward evil.
And by experience, we know well that all this exists. These tendencies which Saint Augustine, at the moment of his conversion, called his "old friends," so much do they stick to our skin. These old friends who pulled him by the garment of his flesh. This is an experience we all have. Who has not felt these formidable suggestions of the "old man"? So, to eradicate these old friends, one must mortify oneself. It is the only way. There is no other.
And if we reflect upon it, we realize that there are four good reasons to mortify ourselves. There are two that are rather negative and two that are rather positive. The first negative reason is original sin. We all received this original sin at birth. Baptism delivered us from the fault, but the wound remains. All these disorders that God leaves us to give us the opportunity to merit: ignorance, malice, weakness, concupiscence. We all experience these weaknesses. Our soul is wounded. We are not good by nature; we are born with evil tendencies that must be repressed. We know this only too well.

The second reason, added to original sin, is all our personal sins which have aggravated our state and left traces of bad habits. Even when forgiven, our sins have left deadly traces in our souls. We must therefore purify ourselves of all these miasmas, of all this dross. These are the first two negative reasons, but we must not stop there. There are two other entirely positive reasons for which we must mortify ourselves—reasons that should even fill us with enthusiasm.
The third reason—the first positive one—is the elevation God has given to our soul. God wants the supernatural order for us. We must therefore mortify ourselves because of our elevation to the supernatural order. God destines us for eternal life—that is, a participation in His own divine life. He wants us holy, purified, consortes divinae naturae, partakers of His divine nature. And this presupposes that we cut away from our lives all that is too human, all that hinders the action of grace. We are made for heaven, but there are innumerable attachments that prevent us from taking flight. So, we must cut these attachments; we must rid ourselves of what weighs us down, of what prevents the elevation of our soul; and that is precisely what mortification accomplishes.
Of course, it is God who elevates our souls; we cannot elevate ourselves by our own power. But we must cooperate; we must dispose ourselves; and that is what mortification does. And finally, the fourth reason, the most beautiful one: we must mortify ourselves because of the example of Our Lord, who suffered and died out of love for us, to redeem our own sins, to redeem our souls. The Christian must conform himself to Jesus Christ because he is "another Christ" (alter Christus).
No doubt, Our Lord did not need to do penance or to mortify Himself, because He was without sin; yet He nevertheless mortified Himself, He sacrificed Himself for us, to save us, and to give us the example. And so, by mortifying ourselves in our turn, we identify ourselves with Him, we incorporate ourselves into Him, we console Him, and we apply to ourselves the fruits of His redemptive sacrifice. Mortification applies to us all the fruits that Jesus merited for us on the Cross. "Confixus sum cuм Christo," says Saint Paul. "I am crucified, co-crucified with Christ." This is what must be done during Lent.

But the Church is a mother, and like a mother, she is not content with prescribing generalities. She descends even into the details. She proposes to us very concrete, precise remedies. And these remedies are held in three words. If you read the liturgy of Lent regularly, you will see that these three words return constantly: Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving.

Prayer first. The spirit of prayer. A more assiduous meditation on the Word of God. A more frequent participation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, even on weekdays during Lent, to truly taste and profit from all this magnificent liturgy. This is the first step the Church expects of us during Lent. Let us pray better; let us pray more. It is prayer that will give value to all our Lenten sacrifices. It must be, in a sense, the soul of our Lent. Without prayer, all exercises of penance would have no meaning; they might even risk engendering pride. So let us already take resolutions in this regard—resolutions of prayer. Let us say our Rosary well; let us make the Stations of the Cross on Fridays, for example. Let us try to read Holy Scripture a little more, and to meditate every day if we can.
After prayer, the Church recommends fasting. This is a very traditional practice in the Church. It dates back to the very earliest times of Christianity. And you know that it was obligatory for all adult baptized persons until our era of spiritual degeneracy—until Vatican II, and even after Vatican II, until the time of Paul VI. So, we must be generous there too, even if we do not take up the entire traditional discipline; let us try at least to fast perhaps on Fridays, the Fridays of Lent, or Wednesdays—everyone doing what they can, but trying to do something for the love of Jesus.

Prayer addresses the soul; fasting concerns the body. But these are not opposing practices; quite the contrary. Fasting must be the expression of the sentiments of penance with which the soul is permeated. And the soul can occupy itself all the more freely with the things of God when it cuts back more on the pleasures of the senses. Fasting, therefore, before being useful to the body, is useful to the soul. It releases the soul from matter. It gives it a wonderful facility to rise to God. The man who eats to excess becomes animalistic; he becomes like a beast. But the man who fasts becomes spiritualized. Saint Basil had a saying that summarizes everything, which is very profound and paradoxical, but speaks volumes: "Fasting," he said, "is the food of great souls." The food of great souls.
So, let us be generous; let us fast. It was in this spirit of fasting that, in former times, Christian society would suspend court sessions and wars during Lent. There were no trials during Lent. War was not waged. It was also a "closed time" for weddings; people did not marry during Lent. And in the same spirit of faith, the Church exhorted spouses to observe continence during this entire period of the solemn fast. You see, all these things were beautiful. Souls were truly sanctified.
Well, we must rediscover this spirit as much as we can. For example, by doing a serious "screen fast" during this Lent. Screens are indeed the great current evil of our time; being able to deprive oneself of the screen, of the famous smartphone. And then, all the little privations that the Holy Spirit may inspire in us: a certain curiosity, a certain little treat one allows oneself—the apéritif for the gentlemen, shopping for the ladies, etc. It is for each to find these small examples, these little things that will please the good God and allow us to make a good Lent.

And finally, the Church especially recommends the practice of almsgiving during Lent. Almsgiving is giving from one's surplus, and even eventually from one's necessity, to relieve the misery of one's neighbor. "Almsgiving covers a multitude of sins," says Saint James. Why? Well, because greed is the source of all evils. Saint Augustine explained it very well: "Minuatur cupiditas, augeatur caritas." When greed decreases, charity grows. So, to decrease greed, one must give of one's goods, of all that one possesses.
And understand that alongside material alms, there is also spiritual alms. For one might say, "I have no goods, I possess nothing, I can give nothing." One can always give something. One can give of one's time, one's health, one's activity; one can visit the sick, one can devote oneself to those in need, one can give pleasure, give a little of one's time to make someone happy, and dot our days with those thousand little inventions of the heart through which fraternal charity effectively reigns.
Rightly, we complain that the times are evil. We groan to see the Church vilified, souls losing themselves, the world rushing to its ruin. Groaning will change nothing at all. That is not what will change things. There is only one way to follow, the one of which the saints have given us the example: to recognize that we have sinned, that we have our part in these evils of the world, and therefore to be converted. Then God will have mercy on us.
Let us therefore be generous; let us make a holy Lent, a true Lent. And may Our Lady, who knows all that our sins have cost her Divine Son, inspire us with Lenten resolutions that are truly appropriate and effective.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.