As Lent is arriving, resolutions abound to give alms, do penance and increase prayer. Yet, if there is more to Lent than dreaded sacrifices, who better to turn to than Pope Francis for advice during these 40 days?
His Lenten messages over the years have mentioned the trap of sin, but also the every-saving power of grace. In 2019, he once again stressed how sin can destroy, but how repentance and forgiveness have the power to heal.
The year before, he recommended that Christians pause, see and return to God.
POPE FRANCIS
Feb 14, 2018
'Pause from this compulsion to a fast-paced life that scatters, divides and ultimately destroys time with family, with friends, with children, with grandparents, and time as a gift... time with God. Return without fear, for this is the favorable time to come home.”
In order to return, Pope Francis reminds Christians that Lent is a time to shed the selfishness and sin that suffocates the spirit.
POPE FRANCIS
March 1, 2017
'Lent is the time to say no to the suffocation of a prayer that soothes our conscience, of an almsgiving that leaves us self-satisfied, of a fasting that makes us feel good.”
Instead, Lent should be marked with a certain fatigue from the work needed to grow in virtue.
POPE FRANCIS
March 1, 2017
“The Lenten exodus is the way that hope itself is formed. The fatigue of crossing the desert- the trials, the temptations, the illusions, the mirages- all of this serves to build strong, and solid, hope.”
Pope Francis has said it is tempting to close in one oneself, justifying sin and minimizing it. However, that is not what the liturgical season is about.
POPE FRANCIS
Feb. 10, 2016
'May Lent be a beneficial time 'pruning' of falsehood, of worldliness, indifference: not to think that everything is fine if I'm right: to understand that what counts is not approval, the pursuit of success or consensus but that of a pure heart.”
In all of his addresses for Lent, he has focused on the need for conversion through prayer, almsgiving and fasting. Pope Francis stresses these three actions will help create a pure heart through ridding one of selfishness and the bondage of sin.
