Vatican City, 6 March 2014 (VIS) –
Yesterday, Ash Wednesday, the Holy Father presided over the
traditional procession of penitence from the Church of St. Anselm on
the the Aventine Hill to the Basilica of Santa Sabina, on the same
Roman hill. Numerous cardinals, archbishops and bishops take part,
along with the Benedictine monks of St. Anselm, the Dominican fathers
of Santa Sabina, and the faithful.
After the procession, Pope Francis
presided over the celebration of the Eucharist with the rite of
blessing and the imposition of the ashes. The Pope received them from
the hands of Cardinal Jozef Tomko, titular of the basilica, and
subsequently imposed them on the cardinals and various monks,
religious and faithful. Following the proclamation of the Gospel, he
gave a homily in which he emphasised that the conversion of the heart
is the characteristic of Lent. “We are called upon to undertake a
path in which, challenging our routine, we make efforts to open …
our hearts, to go beyond simply tending our own gardens.
“We know that this increasingly
artificial world makes us live in a culture of 'doing' of the
'useful', where without realising we exclude God from our horizons.
But we exclude the horizon itself! Lent calls to us to 'shake
ourselves up', to remember that we are creatures, simply that we are
not God. When I watch, in my little daily environment, some battles
to occupy space, I think: these people play at being God the Creator.
They still have not understood that they are not God”.
But, towards others too, “we run the
risk of closing ourselves up, of forgetting them. But only we are
called to by the difficulties and suffering of our brothers, only
then can we undertake our path of conversion towards Easter”. To
walk this spiritual path, three elements are necessary: prayer,
fasting and charity. All three involve “the importance of not
allowing oneself to be dominated by appearances: what counts is not
appearance, but what we have inside”.
Prayer is “the strength of of the
Christian and of every believer. In the weakness and the fragility of
our life, we may turn to God with the trust of His sons and enter
into communion with Him. And Lent is a time for prayer, “a more
intense and prolonged prayer … more able to take on the needs of
our brothers; prayer of intercession, to intercede before God for
many situations of poverty and suffering”.
Fasting “has meaning only if it truly
attacks our security, and if it brings benefits to others, if it
helps us to cultivate the approach of the good Samaritan, who turns
to his brother and takes care of him. Fasting involves choosing a
sober style of life; a life without waste, without discarding things.
Fasting helps us to train our hearts in simplicity and sharing”.
Giving to charity “means giving
freely, because in this way we gives to someone from whom we expect
nothing in return. Giving freely should be one of the characteristics
of the Christian who, aware of having received everything freely from
God, that is, undeservingly, learns to give freely to others. …
Giving to charity helps us to live the free nature of the gift, which
is freedom from the obsession of possession, of the fear of losing
what we have”.
“With its invitation to conversion”,
concluded Pope Francis, “Lent providentially reawakens us, shakes
us from our torpor, from our risk of living by inertia. … Why must
we return to God? Because something is not quite right in us, and is
not right in society or in the Church, and we need to change, to turn
things around. This is what is meant by needing to convert! Once
again, Lent makes its prophetic call to us, to remind us that it is
possible to achieve something new within ourselves and around
ourselves, simply because God is faithful … and continues to be
rich in goodness and mercy, always ready to forgive and start again
from the beginning”.
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