Your participation in this Synod Journey has been very inspiring; a participation and a journey during a pandemic. Your willingness to find the time to do more because it is for the betterment of your Church and for the greater honor and glory of God is praise-worthy. With this same spirit we enter into the solemn season of Lent 2022. For some of us, we admit that since the start of this pandemic, life for us has taken on a Lenten mood. We are more concerned about each other’s well-being. We have gotten accustomed to the slow days that offer us much space for deep reflections and meditation.
As with every Lenten Season, the Church provides us with the powerful first reading from the book Joel 2:12-18. In the early verses of the Word of God it says: “Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the Lord, your God.” We are strongly reminded in that we belong to no other than to the Lord God who is the author of life; He, for whom all things are possible.
“Who do you say that I am?” asked Jesus of his apostles. In response, Peter embraced his Lord and God, and replied in the presence of all around him: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And then what was Thomas Didymus’ response after being brought to faith in Jesus’ resurrection? “My Lord and my God!”
“Rend your hearts, not your garment, and return to the Lord, your God.” We cannot act on these words until we are no longer the ‘center of the universe;’ when we are no longer the focus of everybody’s attention; when we are no longer about ourselves. These words from the Book of Joel will move us when we openly acknowledge that Jesus is for me and you, for all of us, our LORD and GOD. It is He who must be the center of our universe. It is toward him that all our attention must focus.
We must return to the Lord our God! It is in him that true life and living exist. It is in him that we find true peace and love. It is in him that all forgiveness of sins and conversions are found. So, as followers of Christ, we too must make this Lenten journey together. We too have strayed and are not at home with the life we now live. We too must return to the Lord our God who is kind and merciful; who seeks out and awaits every lost sheep to make it home safely.
Lent 2022 reminds us that in every heart, there is a lot of room for improvement. We will continue to live a life for the world when we choose to rend our garments in order to upgrade our wardrobes. But the call is to rend our hearts and return to the Lord our God. It is inside our hearts that, the word of God says, can be found all sorts of negativity. From within our hearts come all those sins we confess at the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
The beauty of a journey together, as children of the Lord God, is that we can take out the speck from each other’s eyes in order for us to see together the clear path back HOME to the Lord our God.
Let our prayer be that we will “find in You our unity so that we may journey together to eternal life and not stray from the way of truth and what is right.” May our return to Him during the holy season be peaceful, blessed and safe. AMEN!