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Dear Friends in Christ,

For thirty years our Lord enjoyed the peace and the happiness of home life. He was born to a mother and foster-father who loved Him, and who knew that theirs was a very special boy. He grew, studied the scriptures, the beloved word of God, entrusted to His people alone among the peoples of the earth. He learned a profession, became a carpenter and helped His foster-father to earn a living. He faced the death of this same beloved guardian, St. Joseph, and learned, as we all do, the profound lesson that comes with the death of a parent. He led a normal life of the times, and grew to be a healthy young man. Only once, during all those years, does Scripture reveal any mention that our Lord acknowledged the truth of who He was, the truth of why He had come upon the earth. When He was found among the scholars of the Temple, by worried and anxious parents, who feared Him missing, Jesus said to them: "Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"

But in His thirtieth year, the fullness of Christ's mission, the mission of the Anointed One of God, came over Him, and He prepared to do His holy work. He prepared by going out into the desert for forty days - and in the desert He fasted and He prayed to God. He withstood the temptations of the devil, the strongest temptations that can be brought upon any man - fasting gave Him the power of a purified mind and body, and prayer gave Him the armor of God the Father. When He came out of the desert, the time had come for Him to begin - and what He began was the giving of Himself for the salvation of Mankind - what He began was almsgiving on a divine level. As St. Paul says, "he emptied himself" for us, and when there was nothing left to give, when He was finished, and in death, the Father revealed what was still hidden in this Man who gave all for others - risen, glorified and eternal life.

Today we begin our own journey towards the memorial of the climax of our Lord's life. Our Baptism has made us ready to meet whatever temptations the devil can put in our way, but the power of Baptism does not stand alone. It is a grace that must be exercised if it is to have any meaning. For we are not like Christ - sometimes we meet the Devil and we overcome - but sometimes we meet him and we fail and fall.

That is why the Church preserves this season of Lent - for our sakes. It is a time, repeated every year of our lives - a time to strengthen in ourselves, the grace that Baptism gave us - the grace that we need, in order not to sin, and to remain faithful to our calling, the living of life as taught by Jesus Christ.

We do this by imitating our Lord, and as He instructs us to do in the Gospel of today's Mass.

We pray - not by putting on the costume of prayer, but by withdrawing into our most secret and interior and personal selves, and there, exposing before God, our utter dependence on His mercy and His blessing. We do this for ourselves, but also for the Church - for the Church is a family, led by the Holy Spirit to care for its members' needs. And we all need the prayers of others - for with their prayers, comes the sign of care which God holds as the best - the sign of our love for one another, spilled over from the eternal love of His own Son for us.

And during Lent, we fast. We observe the laws of the Church about fast and abstinence, holding ourselves on those special days - today, Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and all the Fridays of Lent - holding ourselves to the rule of one main meal and the giving up of meat. But fasting and abstinence can be deepened even further. For the sake of Christ's love, to show Him, in a personal way, how much we appreciate His presence in our lives - we can stay away from something that we would not otherwise do without. This "giving up something for Lent" is criticized by some, who suggest that it is better to take up some new good work for Lent, than to give up something. But I think that it is harder for us to give up something that we enjoy, something we think we need, than it is for us to add something new to our already full table. And the harder the sacrifice, the more meaningful. Think of the pain our Lord endured for our souls, and then consider making His pain just a part of your life during this season of Lent.

Finally, when our Lord turned to the unfolding of His public life, His entire meaning became a process of pouring Himself out for us - in His words, in His actions, in His attitudes, and in the witness of the profound impact He made on those who followed Him and who became the Fathers and founders of our Church. This was almsgiving on a Divine scale. We cannot - even the saints cannot match the perfection of our Lord's giving. But we can try. And this means, not just the regular giving which we make to our Church, or to our accustomed and favorite charities. This means, during these forty days, finding a way to give more - and to give not just of our surplus, but of what we would normally keep for ourselves. It may be money, it may be service, it may be attention to things we normally ignore because of our obsession with work - it may be the simple solution of not passing by the beggar on the street. But to give until it hurts, even for the short span of forty days, means more to our Lord than anything else we can do - and as He promised, the Father in Heaven will see what we give, and will reward us. But if we do not give, the Father will see nothing, and we will get nothing. Blunt, but true. For our Faith is not a thing of after-the-fact compromises and overlooked opportunities - our Faith is a fact of God's justice. And as St. Paul reminds us:

God is not mocked, for a person will reap only what he sowsÉ

Dear friends, Lent is not a diversion - it is a very serious time for Christians - and since Catholics are exceedingly faithful to the living of the Gospel, it is even more serious for us.

So let us adopt these practices recommended to us by the Lord, and by His Church, and look for a better life, a stronger soul, and a closer relationship with God and with one another as a result of our Lenten works. And may Mary, the Mother of our Lord, who did not hesitate before any trial or suffering, be with us during these forty days, encouraging us to keep our promises, so that we may know, as she did, the full joy of the Easter gift, and the reward of God for all that we have given.

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