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February 26, 2020You are merciful to all, O Lord, and despise nothing that you have made. You overlook people’s sins, to bring them to repentance, and you spare them, for you are the Lord our God. (Wisdom 11: 24, 25, 27 - Entrance Antiphon)
To be in the desert, to convert to the Lord, to leave behind the life of sin and start again. As we begin the Lenten season, the Word of God is inviting us to pay closer attention to the voice of our Creator. There are three concrete gestures that should accompany us on the forty days of our journey: prayer, fasting, and doing the works of mercy.
In today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is denouncing a false charity that is truly ostentatious at the moment of helping those in need. Almsgiving should be done in secret, as a way of giving glory to God and not to our own desire for admiration from others. The same is expressed by Jesus regarding fasting. Jesus does not reject fasting as a proper way of asceticism and penance but does not approve of any fasting done for the sake of display and spiritual self-promotion.
God looks into the depths of our hearts and knows our intentions and motivations. Lent is, therefore, for us a great moment to attune to the divine life by reflecting on the proper gestures of reconciliation toward God, other human beings, and creation, and to wish that this desert experience will lead us to a new Paschal encounter.
Let us be led by the Spirit to our personal deserts, the places where we encounter our vulnerability. Let us be transformed by the Lord through the power of Jesus Christ and chose eternal life.
Lord, may I not be afraid of the desert, of silence, of the renunciation to my own will. Give me enough enlightenment to discern your will in the midst of the temptations of evil and to arrive with you to the victory of the Resurrection.
