Vatican City, Feb 6, 2018 / 05:29 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his message for the upcoming Lenten season, Pope Francis urged people to renew their enthusiasm for the faith, using this season of prayer, fasting and almsgiving as an opportunity to stoke the flame of charity in their heart.
“Above all, I urge the members of the Church to take up the Lenten journey with enthusiasm, sustained by almsgiving, fasting and prayer,” the Pope said in his message, published Feb. 6.
“If, at times, the flame of charity seems to die in our own hearts, know that this is never the case in the heart of God! He constantly gives us a chance to begin loving anew.”
At the Easter Vigil, we will light the Easter candle, he said, explaining how it symbolizes a “new fire,” and will “slowly overcome the darkness and illuminate the liturgical assembly.”
“May the light of Christ rising in glory dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds,” he continued. “By listening to God’s word and drawing nourishment from the table of the Eucharist, may our hearts be ever more ardent in faith, hope and love.”
Written on the Solemnity of All Saints, the Pope’s message for Lent is on the theme: “Because of the increase of iniquity, the love of many will grow cold (Matt. 24:12).”
In the message, he warned against both cold hearts and “false prophets,” which he said tempt us to be led and enslaved by our emotions, or by a desire for wealth. “How many of God’s children are mesmerized by momentary pleasures, mistaking them for true happiness!” he wrote.
This is the core of Pope Francis’ Lenten message: to draw attention to the fact that there are many experiences which “whittle away all of [our] enthusiasm and zeal” for the faith, Cardinal Peter Turkson told CNA Feb. 6.
Head of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, he said that living as a disciple of Jesus has a lot of challenges, and therefore Francis’ message highlights the need to re-kindle the fire of our faith.
“Love can become cold because there are very many things which prevent it from sustaining the warmth of enthusiasm that it had,” Turkson explained. Therefore, this message invites us, through prayer, fasting and almsgiving, to re-inspire our love of God and neighbor.
“And this is crucial because all the good works that we decide to do… are all animated by a sense of love,” he continued.
Seeing the problems in the world and within ourselves, the solution is to turn to the Church, Pope Francis said, because along with the truth, she “offers us in the Lenten season the soothing remedy of prayer, almsgiving and fasting.”
One of the biggest obstacles to charity, he continued, is the evil of greed of money, which is what almsgiving helps to counteract.
“How I would like almsgiving to become a genuine style of life for each of us!” the Pope said. “How I would like us, as Christians, to follow the example of the Apostles and see in the sharing of our possessions a tangible witness of the communion that is ours in the Church!”
Almsgiving is very fitting during Lent, he continued, but added that he hopes that “even in our daily encounters with those who beg for our assistance, we would see such requests as coming from God himself.”
Almsgiving, along with prayer and fasting, are intended as instruments to fight both sin within ourselves and its effect on the world. For from greed, follows “the rejection of God and his peace,” he said. We begin to prefer “our own desolation rather than the comfort found in his word and the sacraments.”
Greed also may lead us to violence, he noted, pointing to how we lash out, in particular, at those we think threaten the “certainties” of our lives, such as the unborn child, the elderly and infirm, the immigrant, or even just the neighbor “who does not live up to our expectations.”
Almsgiving is a way of setting us free from greed, acknowledging that “what I possess is never mine alone.”
In fasting, too, we are given the opportunity to grow, he said, both by experiencing the hunger that many people around the world experience daily, and by expressing our own “spiritual hunger and thirst for life in God.”
“Fasting wakes us up. It makes us more attentive to God and our neighbor. It revives our desire to obey God, who alone is capable of satisfying our hunger,” he said.
He explained that devoting more time to prayer also helps us to root out vice from our hearts and to find consolation in God, who is our Father and who “wants us to live life well.”
“Lent summons us, and enables us, to come back to the Lord wholeheartedly and in every aspect of our life,” the Pope said. “With this message, I would like again this year to help the entire Church experience this time of grace anew, with joy and in truth.”
He also said that the Church would again be celebrating the “24 Hours for the Lord” initiative, which is a day for the whole Church to focus on the celebration of the sacrament of reconciliation, within the context of Eucharistic adoration.
This year, it will take place March 9-10, he said, inspired by the words of Psalm 130:4, “With you is forgiveness.” In each diocese, at least one church will remain open for twenty-four consecutive hours, he said, offering opportunities for adoration and sacramental confession.
Led by Pope Francis, “24 Hours for the Lord” is a worldwide initiative which points to confession as a primary way to experience God’s merciful embrace. It was launched in 2014 under the auspices of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization.
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So they are meeting on a problem that currently has good stats but not meeting on the presence of active gays in the clergy like the orgy incident in Rome and the two priests caught in a sexual act in Miami with each other last week and the male prostitute in the Milan area two months ago who avers having had sinful contact with 36 priests. But the meeting is about the largely gay area that is currently quiet…abuse of minors. Well that sounds like we don’t need consultancy help.
Does anybody have any information about what is happening to Cardinal Pell? There’s been blank silence for quite some time, and considering that there seems to be a fair amount of evidence that he is being railroaded, I’m concerned.
I wish I could help you out there Leslie. It seems that for some reason things have stalled. As far as I know though: the trial is still going ahead. I have heard him speak a few times and met him once. I have always had grave fears as to there being a fair trial. He said himself once that he doesn’t go making things up. He simply upholds what the Church teaches, come fair weather or foul. There are those who hate him for it.
Stephen in Australia.
I should have mentioned. There is an Australian journal of conservative opinion. The name of it is Quadrant. When in a newsagents; I was amazed to see an essay in it, written very recently by Cardinal Pell. The essay is titled – The Church in a Post Christian World. It is dated: September 12Th 2018. Search Quadrant and you will be able to see it. However, unless you subscribe, you won’t be able to read it in full just yet. The whole matter is of great concern. Hope this has been some help.
Stephen.
39 mnutes ago..ny times…Di Nardo, president of Bishops facing accusation of transferring molestor…..
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/09/12/us/ap-us-clergy-abuse-dinardo.html
Bergoglio’s synod on “the protection of minors” is a sham. As we all know, the problem is not pedophilia but massive homosexuality among 50% to 70% of all priests and the priest-bishop-Cardinal homosexual networks that are strangling the Church. Still less does the Church need another synod to talk rather than to act. Again, as everyone should know, it was Bergoglio who unilaterally destroyed the bishop sexual abuse investigation-and-trial proceeding that his own sexual abuse commission had strongly recommended. Since Bergoglio has doubled down on his delay-deflect-and-deny strategy with this cynical synod announcement, it is time for the DOJ and the Attorney-Generals in all 50 states to treat him and the American PervChurch for what they are: criminals and moral degenerates.
Paul, I don’t doubt that there are men who are priests and who are gay. There are a few I’ve met that I suspect lean that way. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that they are faithful to their vow of chastity. You claim that 50 – 70% of priests are gay. From where do you get that statistic? I’ve been around priests all my life. My closest friend is a priest. I know he’s not gay and neither are the men I’ve known who are priests. Please tell me from where you get this statistic.
It might come from this much discussed and cited 2003 essay by Fr. Paul Mankowski, in which he states: “I would estimate that between 50 and 60 percent of the men who entered religious life with me in the mid-70s were homosexuals who had no particular interest in the Church, but who were using the celibacy requirement of the priesthood as a way of camouflaging the real reason for the fact that they would never marry.” Or perhaps from Sipes.
I think you are quite correct. The Bishop’s Conferences have no canonical authority at all. This is like a high school principal asking the Student Council to address the problem of incompetent teachers. Except that it doesn’t sound so obviously stupid.