Lent 2024
Each day of Lent has to be lived to prepare oneself to live with more love and responsibility the Easter Triduum. During Lent, there has to be a more and more growing impulse that manifests itself through the faith and love with regard to the Eucharist. All our deeds have to aim at Jesus the Eucharist. Fast, sacrifices, acts of mortification, alms serve to purify us to receive the Eucharist with a clearer and purer heart.
Today, Ash Wednesday, we celebrate the solemn beginning of Lent. I have always wondered why the faithful, beginning with us ecclesiastics, priests and bishops, must assume a sad and almost suffering attitude. Instead, in the Gospel it is written:“When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show others they are fasting. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you” (Mt 6,16-18).