Dear Friends,
Our Lenten journey has begun. The Church is giving us 40 days of intense spiritual renewal in order to root out sin from our lives. Sin, little it may seem, robs us of the fullness of life which is due to us, not as something we earned but something won for us by Christ. That is why Lent is not about having lesser sin. It is about separating ourselves totally from it.
Benedict XVI in his Lenten message reminds us that the proper attitude for this season is humility. Our almost unimaginable accomplishments as human beings aided by science and technology, has given us a false sense of confidence and independence. We believe that we can conquer everything, including sin, even without the aid of God. The pope in his 2010 Lenten Message said, “The fact that expiation flows from the blood of Christ signifies that it is not man’s sacrifices that free him from the weight of his faults, but the loving act of God who opens Himself in the extreme, even to the point of bearing in Himself the “curse” due to man so as to give in return the “blessing” due to God.” We need to free ourselves from that illusion of self-sufficiency.
Let us make this Lent an authentic journey to conversion by opening our lives to the workings of God’s grace. Our Lenten practices such as fasting and abstinence, prayer and almsgiving can aid us in letting God enter our lives. By all means we try our best to be faithful to them. We must trust the wisdom of the Church for proposing us these penitential acts.
Fr. Jay Policarpio
Director
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