POPE FRANCIS ON LENT (2021)

“In this Lenten season, accepting and living the truth revealed in Christ means, first of all, opening our hearts to God’s word, which the Church passes on from generation to generation. This truth is not an abstract concept reserved for a chosen intelligent few. Instead, it is a message that all of us can receive and understand thanks to the wisdom of a heart open to the grandeur of God, who loves us even before we are aware of it. Christ himself is this truth. By taking in our humanity, even to its very limits, he has made himself the way—-demanding yet open to all —- that leads to the fullness of life.

Fasting, experienced as a form of self-denial, helps those who undertake it in simplicity of heart to rediscover God’s gift and to recognize that, created in his image and likeness, we find our fulfillment in him. In embracing the experience of poverty, those who fast make themselves poor with the poor and accumulate the treasure of a love both received and shared. In this way, fasting helps us to love God and our neighbors, in as much as love, as Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches, is a movement outwards that focuses our attention on others and considers (Fratelli Tutti 93)

Lent is a time for believing, for welcoming God into our lives and allowing him to “making his dwelling” among us (Jn 14:25). Fasting involves being freed from all that weighs us down—- like consumerism or an excess of information, whether true or false—- in order to open the doors of our hearts to the One who comes to us, poor in all things, yet “full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14): the Son of God our Savior.