Lent of charity

On Saturday of the IV week in Ordinary time, we finished reading and proclaiming the Letter to the Hebrews that I have read, reflected on and meditated many times. But since “the Word of God is always alive and active…” (Heb 4,12), that day I was “more incisively” touched by this recommendation of the author of the Letter: “But don’t forget to help others and to share your possessions with them. This too is like offering a sacrifice that pleases God” (Heb 13:16).

I immediately remembered another recommendation from the Old Testament: “I do want mercy and not sacrifice, knowledge of God, more than burnt offerings” (Hos 6,6).

Thinking again about that, being Lent at hand, I told myself: “Isn’t that, perhaps, the best program to prepare myself for Easter?” And well convinced that it is so, I shared that with the sisters.

But the «short and fundamental Lent program» is not only that. Among proposals and invitations to connect online for retreats, talks and colloquia received from everywhere, there is also the Message of Pope Francis that, in this year 2021, being still the pandemic its backdrop, focuses on the theological virtues. Using his clear and engaging, stimulating and encouraging language, he describes what today, as yesterday, is essential in our Christian life. While I was reading it, I was practically underlining everything! But, in a special way the following passages:

As a preamble, he reminds us that «… The Lenten journey, like the entire pilgrimage of the Christian life, is even now illumined by the light of the resurrection, which inspires the thoughts, attitudes and decisions of the followers of Christ” and, the Popes continues “Fasting, prayer and almsgiving, as preached by Jesus (cf. Mt 6:1-18), enable and express our conversion. The path of poverty and self-denial (fasting), concern and loving care for the poor (almsgiving), and childlike dialogue with the Father (prayer) make it possible for us to live lives of sincere faith, living hope and effective charity.

The theological virtue of «faith calls us to accept the truth and testify to it before God and all our brothers and sisters”. This truth is “Christ himself that, by taking on our humanity, […] made himself the way that leads to the fullness of life”. It is because of that that “fasting, experienced as a form of self-denial, helps those who undertake it in simplicity of heart to rediscover God’s gift and to recognize that, created in his image and likeness, we find our fulfilment in him […] those who fast make themselves poor with the poor

«Hope is like living water enabling us to continue our journey”. In this time of pandemic, it may appear challenging to speak of hope, says the Pope. But no, “Lent is precisely the season of hope, when we turn back to God who patiently continues to care for his creation which we have often mistreated (cf. LS 32-33; 43-44).

“During Lent, let us be more attentive to saying words of encouragement, that comfort, that strengthen, that console, that stimulate ’instead of‘ words that humble, that sadden, that irritate, that despise ’(FT 223). Through recollection and silent prayer, hope is given to us as inspiration and interior light, illuminating the challenges and choices we face in our mission”.

«Love is the highest expression of our faith and hope”. Whoever lives love, “rejoices in seeing others grow” and suffers when others are anguished, lonely, sick, homeless, despised or in need. To experience Lent with love – in the present moment – means caring for those who suffer or feel abandoned and fearful because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Pope Francis concludes his message by recalling that “every moment of our lives is a time for believing, hoping and loving. The call to experience Lent as a journey of conversion, prayer and sharing of our goods, helps us – as communities and as individuals – to revive the faith that comes from the living Christ, the hope inspired by the breath of the Holy Spirit and the love flowing from the merciful heart of the Father”.

Continuing my reflection, I turned my gaze to Francis of Assis and Father Luis Amigó. In the writings of the Poverello in the words he addressed to “all the faithful” we read: “All who love the Lord with their whole heart, their whole soul and mind, and with their strength, and love their neighbor as themselves, and who despise the tendency in their humanity to sin, receive the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and bring forth from within themselves fruits worthy of true penance. How happy and blessed are these men and women when they do these things, and persevere in doing them because “the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon them,” and the Lord will make “His home and dwelling place with them. They are the children of the Heavenly Father whose works they do. They are the spouses, brothers and mothers of Our Lord Jesus Christ” (LetF. 1,1).

The first thing that Francis underlines is love and he subscribes it for those who take this text as the basis of the Order of Penance, whose commitment to conversion entails renunciations as well as the distinctive of a penitential habit; a life centered on our own conversion as a path of union with God and growing love to the brothers to whom it offers the “fruits worthy of penance”, that are nothing else than the works of mercy, concrete actions of charity. We remind that they are:

Reading them again, we focus on the work carried out by the whole Church: Diocese, Religious Orders, Institutes of Consecrated Life, Societies of Apostolic Life, Associations, Brotherhoods, NGOs, and a long etcetera. They stay on the frontiers, where the poor and people in need are.

And Father Luis, in his time language, what does he tell us about penance? In his writings there are 242 quotations about that. He, who impressed on the Capuchin Tertiary Brothers and Sisters a franciscan-capuchin character of penance, contemplation, minority and fraternity, considers that Saint Francis is the perfect model of penance for all the times (cf. OCLA 1288, 1294, 1295), that the cross, penance and mortification have their reason of being in the imitation of Christ (cf. OCLA 397, 840, 1196, 1201, 1204, 1211, 1505) and that sacrifices, as well as any other form of penance, are based on charity (cf. OCLA 1055, 1062, 1719, 1806). And our Founder lived what he says in his writings, and in the Positio Super Virtutibus, all that is declared by the witnesses in the ordinary and apostolic process of his canonization.

I invite myself and I invite you to live a Lent of charity.

Hna. MARÍA DESAMPARADOS ALEJOS MORÁN, TC