Bishop Lucas on Lent

Jesus is to be our focus this Lenten season, says Bishop Lucas of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, because "He draws us out of ourselves and out of the immediate effects of sin into an understanding of our participation in the history of salvation."

In his weekly column in the Catholic Times, he further said:

When we can admit from the beginning of Lent that we are powerless to transform ourselves, then we can allow the grace of God to lift us beyond our limitations and to incorporate us more fully into the mystery of the Lord’s death and resurrection.

It is in baptism that a Christian is first plunged into the death of Christ and reborn in the household of faith by the power of his resurrection. From the earliest days of celebrating the liturgical season of Lent, the church has asked her members to focus on baptism. In our parishes, we offer prayer and encouragement to those who are preparing to be baptized at the Easter vigil. Those of us already baptized prepare to renew the profession of faith and promises of baptism at Easter.

During our 40-day retreat with the Lord, we meditate on the essential difference that baptism has made for this life and the next. We pray that, as Easter approaches, our own baptismal vocation and its corresponding mission will become more clear to us. We pray as well that our response to this call from the Lord will become more wholehearted, more free.

This wholehearted response requires an ongoing conversion of heart. Traditional Lenten practices of the church help us to accept the challenge of conversion from selfishness in practical ways. The Gospel of Ash Wednesday cautions that our Lenten observance must begin and end in the heart. During these final days before Lent begins, we can decide what our own personal Lenten observance will entail, beyond the minimum asked by the church. This gives us a few days to pray about what we propose to do, making sure that the heart is in the right place.

As we consider the Lenten practices that we will take up next week, His Excellency reminded the faithful that "It is important that our Lenten prayers include intercessions for each other, that we will be renewed in the blessings of faith, hope and love which were first given to us in baptism."