The forty days that precede Holy Week are set aside by the Church to prepare us for the greatest Solemnity of the year: Easter, the Resurrection, Jesus’ victory over sin.
Newsroom (17/03/2022/, 9:50, Gaudium Press) Since the beginning of Christianity, Lent has marked for Christians a time of grace, prayer, penance, and fasting, in order to obtain conversion.
It reminds us of the words of the divine Master: “If you do not do penance, you will all perish” (Lk 13:3).
These forty days that precede Holy Week are put in place by the Church for each of us to prepare ourselves for the greatest of all liturgical solemnities of the year: Easter. The great celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus, His victory and ours over evil, over sin, over death and hell.
The liturgical celebration is not a mere memory of the past, something that happened to Jesus and passed away, no. Jesus is present in the Liturgy. The Catechism states that:
“Through the liturgy, Christ, our redeemer, and high priest, continues in his Church, with her and through her, the work of our redemption.” (§1069).
This means that through the Liturgy of the Church, Jesus continues to save us, especially through the Sacraments, and makes present our redemption.
How does the Christian prepare himself to benefit from this celebration?
But for a Christian to be able to benefit from this celebration, he needs to be prepared, with a purified soul and a heart thirsty for God.
The Church recommends, above all, that we live what she calls “remedies against sin” (fasting, almsgiving and prayer), which Jesus recommended in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 6:1-8) and which the Church places before us on Ash Wednesday, at the opening of Lent.
The goal of Lent is the expiation of sins through exercises of piety
The goal of Lent is the expiation of sins; for they are the leprosy of the soul. There is nothing worse than sin for man, the Church, and the world. All exercises of piety and mortification are aimed at ridding us of sin.
Fasting strengthens the spirit and the will so that the disordered passions, especially those concerning the body (gluttony, lust, sloth), do not dominate our life and our behavior.
Almsgiving helps the poor in need and produces in us detachment and detachment from earthly goods; this helps us to overcome greed and attachment to money.
Prayer strengthens the soul in the fight against sin. Jesus recommended on the night of his agony: “Watch and pray, the spirit is strong but the flesh is weak.
Prayer, fasting, almsgiving: what the Word of God teaches us about these exercises
The Word of God teaches us: “Prayer accompanied by fasting is good, and giving alms is worth more than gathering treasures of gold, for almsgiving delivers from death, and is what erases sins, and makes one find mercy and eternal life” (Tb 12, 8-9).
“Water quenches the burning fire, and almsgiving endures sins”(Eccl 3:33). “Enclose alms in the bosom of the poor, and she will pray for you to deliver you from all evil” ( Eccl 29:15).
Jesus taught: “Pray always and never stop praying” (Lk 18:1b); “Watch and pray lest you enter into temptation” (Mt 26:41a); “Ask and it will be given you” (Mt 7:7) . And St. Paul recommended: “Pray without ceasing” (I Thess 5:17).
Lent is, therefore, a time to break completely with sin. Some think they are sinless, they think they are blameless, like the Pharisee in the parable who despised the poor publican (Lk 18:10 ff); but in fact, many times they do not realize their own sins because of a malformed conscience that ends up covering them up.
To avoid falling into this error we have to compare our lives with those who were the models of holiness: Christ and the saints.
(Adapted from an article by Professor Felipe Aquino, Church History Professor at the “Instituto de Teologia Bento XVI” of the Diocese of Lorena and Canção Nova, Knight of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great)
Compiled by Camille Mittermeier