Lent Explained
I Forty working days
1. Lent means “forty” and applies to the 40 days of intense preparation for the EASTER party.
2. Jesus withdrew for 40 days. Moses waited 40 days before going up Sinai. Elijah walked for 40 days to Horeb. And the march of the Jews through the desert lasted 40 years.
3. “40” is therefore a symbolic number that expresses the eve, intense “preparation” of something very important that, for us, is EASTER
4. Lent is not understood if it is not based on EASTER.
5. The season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Palm Sunday. In that period the “Hallelujah” is not sung nor is the “Gloria” recited.
6. In early times, Lent was a period of intensive preparation for Baptism, which is celebrated on Easter night.
7. Being baptized requires coherence and a change of mentality.
II. change time
1. On Ash Wednesday we are told: “Repent and believe the Gospel.” Lent is therefore a time of conversion.
2. To convert means “to return”, “to change”, “to correct the path” “to renew”
3. The change we want is to go from the “old man” to the “new man”
4. “Old man” is the one who lives behind the back of Christ and the Gospel. “New man” is the one who follows Jesus and lives according to the Gospel.
5. Are you an “old man” or a “new man”? Think it over, man!
6. Some Christians believe that conversion is only for pagans and heretics… And, of course, they don’t need Lent.
7. Others think that by not eating meat on Fridays or quitting smoking they have already fulfilled… No! If there is no change, there is no Lent.
8. Lent is to change your life.
III. change the heart
1. Ash Wednesday is a day of fast and abstinence. The Fridays of Lent are days of abstinence.
2. Fasting for fasting’s sake doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t make people better… Especially in a world where many fast, not because it’s Lent, but because they don’t have anything to eat.
3. Refraining from eating meat is a sign that has its importance because of what it means.
4. Fasting and abstinence are “signs of conversion.” They are not “conversion”.
5. Fasting is a sign that you:
– you want to “fast from sins”
– you sympathize with the hungry
– you prefer the bread of the Word
– stop consumerism
– you want to share yours.
6. Abstinence is a sign that you:
– you want to refrain from sin
– you don’t eat the bread of the poor
– you “keep fit” inside.
7. What matters is to change the heart.
IV. “Repent and believe in the Gospel”
1. Lent is a time of renewal for the community. Either we all do it together or it’s not Lent.
2. It is Lent: the couple, the family, the group, the parish, the community. No one does Lent alone
3. If the believers in this country change, the whole country will change. Lent helps change society.
4. The model of change is in the Gospel, the Word of God. Lent is a favorable time for the announcement and listening to the Word.
5. Saint Jerome said: “Ignoring the Gospel is ignoring Christ.”
6. Jesus said: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of my Father.”
7. The reading of the Gospel as a family, the gatherings, the Spiritual Exercises, the cults of the Brotherhoods… are privileged moments to listen to the Word of God. Do not close your ears to the Word.
V. Lent and the man of today
1. Man today is somewhat self-sufficient and somewhat God-forsaken. He relies too much on reason and sometimes he closes himself to faith, don’t you think?
2. The man of today thinks that Lent is for “carrozas” and “carcas”: “it is no longer in style.”
3. They say that today’s man has lost the conscience of sin. Is it true that there are no more sins?
4. Or is it that today’s man needs to be converted more than any other?
5. What happens is that conversion is somewhat complicated.
6. When the man of today understands how serious it is to change his life and quarantine his heart, then he will realize that he needs Lent.
7. The man of today is the man of the gospel, because the gospel is always of today.
8. We are all men of today, who need a “today” Lent.
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