Our great gift
As the Church prepares for the penitential season of Lent, Catholics will apply their minds to the nature of this year’s sacrifice (or, indeed, sacrifices).
Most often, these sacrifices will involve abstention from items of consumption, such as meat, alcohol, chocolates, chips, cola or cigarettes, or refraining from habitual pleasures, such as gambling, watching television or using social networking sites.
The Church urges that money saved from making Lenten sacrifices should be used to supplement our contribution to the bishops’ Lenten Appeal. Pope Benedict in this year’s Lenten message amplifies the need for what he calls our “capacity to share”.
Lent is a time for conversion; a time in which we are called to prayerfully reflect on wrong paths that we might have taken, and try and resume our pilgrim’s journey in the right direction. It is a time when we must seek to purify ourselves in preparation for our encounter with the risen Christ on Easter Sunday. So we strive to purge ourselves from bad habits and routine sins, make sacrifices, and thereby seek spiritual renewal.
Lent is a time for personal stocktaking, when we are called to eliminate that which does us—and others—harm, when we discern the deficiencies in our life and in our faith, when we repent for our trespasses and also give thanks for our blessings (especially if we have fallen out of the practice of doing so).
It is commendable to make a Lenten sacrifice by abstention as a regime in internal discipline (even if for many it has become a cultural practice). We must not be discouraged when we lapse in our Lenten pledge in moments of temptation, but continue our walk through the desert with Jesus.
At the same time, giving up an old habit during Lent might be an easier option than taking on a new habit.
In his encyclical Deus caritas est (God Is Love), Pope Benedict noted: “There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbour is indispensable.”
The need for the proclamation of love—caritas—is perennial. Lent is a stimulus for sacrifice, which in itself invariably is an act love. The possibilities for expressing that love through sacrifice are plenty.
Volunteer at an orphanage, even if your qualifications in that field are confined to playing with the little ones. Seek out the lonely and the aged in your parish to provide companionship and, if needed, help. Give to or volunteer at a soup kitchen for the homeless. Hand food parcels to your parish’s Society of St Vincent de Paul or care group. Donate toys to a children’s hospital or a township crèche. Visit prisoners, who will be grateful for contact with the outside world. Offer your help to organisations that provide desperate pregnant mothers with an alternative to abortion, such as Birthright or the Mater homes in KwaZulu-Natal and Cape Town. Offer professional skills pro bono to charities that might struggle to pay for legal, accounting, marketing or maintenance expertise.
Of course, not everybody has the time or resources to engage in such activities. It does not take long, however, to write letters of appreciation and encouragement to your priest, deacon, parish pastoral council and bishop—itself an act of reaching out.
Lent is a time for sacrifice and for healing. Rancour and the absence of love towards others can profoundly inhibit our relationship with God. It is a good time to sacrifice the impulses of pride and mend relations with estranged family members, friends, neighbours or colleagues.
As we journey towards the crucified Lord whose loving sacrifice offers us the gift of salvation, it should not be so difficult to ask for and offer forgiveness and healing broken relationships.
The Lenten season is penitential and sacrificial by nature. These attributes may not have great currency in modern society, but for us, as Catholics, it is a remarkable gift through which we may restore our spirit.
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