Lent

Lent opens with readings that call us to penance. However, this penance must be understood within its proper context. Penance is really an attempt to correct what is upset, to repair what is broken, to atone for the wrong done. Penance must spring from a contrite heart or acts of penance can be merely external feats of endurance.

Nothing that we do can reconcile us with God. No penance, regardless of its severity, can repair a ruptured covenant bond. Only the mercy and graciousness of God can accomplish this. And God has accomplished it in the death and resurrection of Jesus. It was God’s love for sinners that prompted such a magnanimous display of divine love. Through Jesus, the entire world has been reconciled to God. Now, each individual has the opportunity to be reconciled. Penance and acts of devotion are ways of benefiting from the treasury of divine mercy and love. They do not buy reconciliation; it has already been purchased.

Almsgiving and fasting and prayer are honoured ways of changing whatever prevents us from drinking from the streams of divine grace. Almsgiving reminds us of the covenant bond that joins us with each other and of the social responsibilities that accompany it. Fasting sensitises us to the dependence we have on the natural world. It also curbs our insatiable desire for more and more. Prayer unites us with God, the source of our being and our merciful covenant partner.

© Dianne Bergant CSA