This year, the Lord grants us once again a favorable time to prepare ourselves with renewed hearts to celebrate the great mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus — the cornerstone of our personal and communal Christian life. We must continually return to this mystery in mind and heart, for it will grow within us to the extent that we open ourselves to its spiritual power and respond freely and generously.
Christian joy springs from listening to and accepting the Good News of Jesus’ death and resurrection. This kerygma sums up the mystery of a love “so real, so true, so concrete, that it invites us to a relationship of openness and fruitful dialogue” (Christus Vivit, 117). Whoever believes in this message rejects the lie that our life is ours to do with as we please. Rather, life is born of the love of God the Father and his desire to give us life in abundance (cf. Jn 10:10). If, on the contrary, we listen to the seductive voice of the “father of lies” (Jn 8:44), we risk sinking into the abyss of meaninglessness and experiencing a kind of hell on earth, as many tragic personal and collective human events sadly attest.
During this Lent of 2020, I wish to share with every Christian what I wrote to young people in the Apostolic Exhortation Christus Vivit:
“Keep your eyes fixed on the outstretched arms of Christ crucified, let yourself be saved over and over again. And when you go to confess your sins, believe firmly in his mercy which frees you of your guilt. Contemplate his blood poured out with such great love, and let yourself be cleansed by it. In this way, you can be reborn ever anew” (no. 123).
The Easter of Jesus is not a past event; rather, by the power of the Holy Spirit, it is ever present, allowing us to see and touch in faith the flesh of Christ in those who suffer.
It is good to contemplate more deeply the Paschal mystery through which God’s mercy has been bestowed upon us. In fact, the experience of mercy is only possible in a “face-to-face” relationship with the crucified and risen Lord “who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20), in a sincere dialogue between friends. That is why prayer is so important in Lent. More than a duty, prayer is an expression of our need to respond to God’s love, which always precedes and sustains us. Christians pray knowing that, though unworthy, we are still loved. Prayer may take different forms, but what truly matters in God’s eyes is that it penetrates deeply within us and breaks down the hardness of our hearts, leading us more fully to God and to his will.
In this favorable time, let us be led like Israel into the desert (cf. Hos 2:14), so that we may finally hear the voice of our Bridegroom and allow it to echo ever more deeply within us. The more we engage with his Word, the more we will experience the freely given mercy he offers us. Let us not allow this season of grace to pass in vain, in the foolish illusion that we can control the timing and means of our conversion to him.
3. God’s passionate desire for dialogue with his children
We must never take for granted the fact that the Lord once again offers us a favorable time for our conversion. This new opportunity should awaken in us a sense of gratitude and rouse us from our sloth. Despite the tragic presence of evil in our lives, in the life of the Church, and in the world, this opportunity for change expresses God’s unwavering will not to break off his saving dialogue with us. In Jesus crucified — who knew no sin but was made sin for us (cf. 2 Cor 5:21) — this saving will led the Father to place on his Son the weight of our sins, thereby, in the words of Pope Benedict XVI, “setting God against God himself” (Deus Caritas Est, 12). For God also loves his enemies (cf. Mt 5:43–48).
The dialogue that God wants to establish with each of us through the Paschal mystery of his Son has nothing to do with empty chatter, like that attributed to the ancient Athenians, who “spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas” (Acts 17:21). Such babble, driven by superficial curiosity, characterizes worldliness in every age. In our own day, it can also result in the misuse of communication media.
4. A treasure to be shared, not hoarded
Placing the Paschal mystery at the center of our lives means having compassion for the wounds of the crucified Christ, present in the many innocent victims of war, in attacks on life — from that of the unborn to the elderly — and in all forms of violence. They are also present in environmental disasters, the unequal distribution of the earth’s goods, human trafficking in all its forms, and the unbridled pursuit of profit, which is a form of idolatry.
Today, too, we must call upon men and women of good will to share, through almsgiving, their goods with those most in need as a way to personally participate in the building of a better world. Charity makes us more human, while hoarding risks making us less human — prisoners of our own selfishness. We can and must go further by addressing the structural aspects of our economic lives. That is why, in the middle of this year’s Lent, from March 26 to 28, I have convened a meeting in Assisi with young economists, entrepreneurs, and changemakers, with the goal of building a more just and inclusive economy. As the Church’s Magisterium has frequently stated, political life is a lofty form of charity (cf. Pius XI, Address to the Italian Federation of Catholic University Students, December 18, 1927). The same holds true for economic life, which can be approached in the spirit of the Gospel — the spirit of the Beatitudes.
I ask Our Blessed Mother Mary to pray that our Lenten celebration will open our hearts to hear God’s call to be reconciled with him, to fix our gaze on the Paschal mystery, and to open ourselves to a sincere and open dialogue with him. In this way, we will become what Christ asks of his disciples: the salt of the earth and the light of the world (cf. Mt 5:13–14).