Pope at Audience: ‘disconnect
from TV, smart phones and connect to the Gospel in Lent’
 |
| Pope Francis reaches out to a child during the General Audience (Vatican Media) |
Pope Francis holds the General Audience in St. Peter’s
Square on Ash Wednesday, reflecting on how the coming forty days are a good
time to make room for the Word of God in our lives.
By Linda Bordoni
“Lent,” Pope Francis said to some 12,000 pilgrims gathered
in St. Peter’s Square, “is a time in which to turn off the television and
open the Bible.”
During his catechesis for the weekly General Audience the
Pope reflected on the 40 days spent by Jesus in the desert as He prepared for
His public ministry and said that, in a sense, it is a time for us to imitate
Jesus and seek a place of silence, where we are free to hear the Lord’s word
and experience His call.
“In the desert one hears the Word of God,” he said, “one
finds intimacy with God and the love of the Lord,” noting that Jesus taught us
how to seek the Father, who speaks to us in silence.
The pollution of verbal violence
He remarked on the fact that, for many of us, it is not easy
to be in silence as we live in an environment that is “polluted by too much
verbal violence," by so many "offensive and harmful words" which
are amplified by the internet.
“Lent is a time to disconnect from cell phones and connect
to the Gospel,” he said, recalling that when he was a child there was no television,
but his family would make a point of not listening to the radio.
“It is the time to give up useless words, chatter, rumors,
gossip, and talk and to speak directly to the Lord,” he said, it is a time in
which to dedicated ourselves to an ecology of the heart.
In a world in which we often struggle to distinguish the
voice of the Lord, Jesus calls us into the desert and invites us to listen to
what matters, Pope Francis explained. And he recalled that when the devil
tempted Him, Jesus replied “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word
that comes forth from the mouth of God.”
A place of silence and dialogue with the Lord
Thus the desert, represented by the journey of Lent, he
continued, is a place of life, a place in which to dialogue in silence with the
Lord who gives us life.
The Pope also reflected on how an important part of our
Lenten desert experience is the practice of fasting, which trains us to
recognize, in simplicity of heart, how often our lives are spent in empty and
superficial pursuits.
“Fasting is being capable of giving up the superfluous and
going to the essential. Fasting is not only losing weight, it is seeking the
beauty of a simpler life,” he said.
The Pope also noted that the solitude of the desert
increases our sensitivity to those who quietly cry out for help.
“Even today, close to us, there are many deserts, many
lonely people: they are the lonely and the abandoned. How many poor and old
people live near us in silence, marginalized and discarded, “he said.
A journey of charity
The desert of Lent leads us to them, he continued. It is a
journey of charity towards those who are weak and in need.
Pope Francis concluded his catechesis reiterating that the
path through the Lenten desert is made up of “prayer, fasting, works of
mercy", so that it may lead us "from death to life".
“If we enter the desert with Jesus, we will leave it at
Easter when the power of God's love renews life,” he said, and just like those
deserts that bloom in spring with buds and plants suddenly sprouting from the
sand, if we follow Jesus, our deserts will also bloom.
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