MESSAGE
OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
FOR LENT 2020
FOR LENT 2020
“We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2
Cor 5:20)
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
This year the Lord grants us,
once again, a favourable time to prepare to celebrate with renewed hearts the
great mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus, the cornerstone of our
personal and communal Christian life. We must continually return to this
mystery in mind and heart, for it will continue to grow within us in the
measure that we are open to its spiritual power and respond with freedom and
generosity.
1. The paschal mystery
as the basis of conversion
Christian joy flows from
listening to, and accepting, the Good News of the death and resurrection of
Jesus. This kerygma sums up the mystery of a love “so real, so
true, so concrete, that it invites us to a relationship of openness and
fruitful dialogue” (Christus Vivit, 117). Whoever believes this
message rejects the lie that our life is ours to do with as we will. Rather,
life is born of the love of God our Father, from his desire to grant us life in
abundance (cf. Jn 10:10). If we listen instead to the tempting
voice of the “father of lies” (Jn 8:44), we risk sinking into the
abyss of absurdity, and experiencing hell here on earth, as all too many tragic
events in the personal and collective human experience sadly bear witness.
In this Lent of 2020, I would
like to share with every Christian what I wrote to young people in the
Apostolic Exhortation Christus Vivit: “Keep your eyes fixed on the
outstretched arms of Christ crucified, let yourself be saved over and over
again. And when you go to confess your sins, believe firmly in his mercy which
frees you of your guilt. Contemplate his blood poured out with such great love,
and let yourself be cleansed by it. In this way, you can be reborn ever anew” (No. 123). Jesus’ Pasch is not a past event;
rather, through the power of the Holy Spirit it is ever present, enabling us to
see and touch with faith the flesh of Christ in those who suffer.
2. The urgency of
conversion
It is good to contemplate more
deeply the paschal mystery through which God’s mercy has been bestowed upon us.
Indeed, the experience of mercy is only possible in a “face to face”
relationship with the crucified and risen Lord “who loved me and gave himself
for me” (Gal 2:20), in a heartfelt dialogue between friends. That
is why prayer is so important in Lent. Even more than a duty, prayer is an
expression of our need to respond to God’s love which always precedes and
sustains us. Christians pray in the knowledge that, although unworthy, we are
still loved. Prayer can take any number of different forms, but what truly
matters in God’s eyes is that it penetrates deep within us and chips away at
our hardness of heart, in order to convert us ever more fully to God and to his
will.
In this favourable season, then,
may we allow ourselves to be led like Israel into the desert (cf. Hos 2:14),
so that we can at last hear our Spouse’s voice and allow it to resound ever
more deeply within us. The more fully we are engaged with his word, the more we
will experience the mercy he freely gives us. May we not let this time of grace
pass in vain, in the foolish illusion that we can control the times and means
of our conversion to him.
3. God’s passionate will
to dialogue with his children
The fact that the Lord once
again offers us a favourable time for our conversion should never be taken for
granted. This new opportunity ought to awaken in us a sense of gratitude and
stir us from our sloth. Despite the sometimes tragic presence of evil in our
lives, and in the life of the Church and the world, this opportunity to change
our course expresses God’s unwavering will not to interrupt his dialogue of
salvation with us. In the crucified Jesus, who knew no sin, yet for our sake
was made to be sin (cf. 2 Cor 5:21), this saving will led the
Father to burden his Son with the weight of our sins, thus, in the expression
of Pope Benedict XVI, “turning of God against
himself” (Deus Caritas Est, 12). For God also loves
his enemies (cf. Mt 5:43-48).
The dialogue that God wishes to
establish with each of us through the paschal mystery of his Son has nothing to
do with empty chatter, like that attributed to the ancient inhabitants of
Athens, who “spent their time in nothing except telling or hearing something
new” (Acts 17:21). Such chatter, determined by an empty and
superficial curiosity, characterizes worldliness in every age; in our own day,
it can also result in improper use of the media.
4. A richness to be
shared, not kept for oneself
Putting the paschal mystery at
the centre of our lives means feeling compassion towards the wounds of the
crucified Christ present in the many innocent victims of wars, in attacks on
life, from that of the unborn to that of the elderly, and various forms of
violence. They are likewise present in environmental disasters, the unequal
distribution of the earth’s goods, human trafficking in all its forms, and the
unbridled thirst for profit, which is a form of idolatry.
Today too, there is a need to
appeal to men and women of good will to share, by almsgiving, their goods with
those most in need, as a means of personally participating in the building of a
better world. Charitable giving makes us more human, whereas hoarding risks
making us less human, imprisoned by our own selfishness. We can and must go
even further, and consider the structural aspects of our economic life. For
this reason, in the midst of Lent this year, from 26 to 28 March, I have
convened a meeting in Assisi with young economists, entrepreneurs and
change-makers, with the aim of shaping a more just and inclusive economy. As
the Church’s magisterium has often repeated, political life represents an
eminent form of charity (cf. Pius XI, Address to the Italian Federation
of Catholic University Students, 18 December 1927). The same holds true for
economic life, which can be approached in the same evangelical spirit, the
spirit of the Beatitudes.
I ask Mary Most Holy to pray
that our Lenten celebration will open our hearts to hear God’s call to be
reconciled to himself, to fix our gaze on the paschal mystery, and to be
converted to an open and sincere dialogue with him. In this way, we will become
what Christ asks his disciples to be: the salt of the earth and the light of
the world (cf. Mt 5:13-14).
Francis
Rome, at Saint John Lateran, 7
October 2019
Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary
Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary
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