The merciful gaze of Jesus: Lent, 2006

Lent has begun. Last Wednesday we took the blessed ashes upon our foreheads and accepted the invitation of the Church to go into the desert with the Lord.

The desert is the place where Jesus prays and fasts to prepare for his public ministry. It was not the fasting sometimes fashionable today—dieting to have better health or a more attractive figure or to train for a sporting event.

Like Moses in the desert, the pious Jew of Jesus’ day would fast from earthly nourishment in order to become hungry for divine food, to become hungry for God. In the desert for 40 days, Jesus fasted to become empty in order to receive and carry out the will of his Father.

We, the followers of Jesus, need to fast to become free for God. The Church no longer has precise rules for substantial Lenten fasting, except for Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and the result might be that we too easily drift through Lent and find at Easter that we have not made any serious effort. This is greatly to our spiritual loss and that of the Church.

When our every desire—for food and drink, for comfort, pleasure, entertainment or travel—is gratified, we are too much taken up with ourselves, closed in upon our projects, trapped by our desires. We have then less room for others and their needs, less room even for God.

What ought our Lenten observance be? More prayer and greater attendance at Mass, of course, but it also makes sense to enter the Lenten desert with a specific resolution to consistently and sensibly reduce our eating and drinking. Perhaps we could resolve also to cut down on TV and various forms of entertainment to find time for prayer and helping others.

One of the Lenten liturgical prayers asks that we be freed from vice in our minds. Lent is the time for a campaign against a besetting sin that is damaging our friendship with God. Gossip, slander, evil thoughts, lying, dishonesty, attacks on others are sins that can be singled out so that we might ask the Lord to set us free.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his Lenten message for 2006, introduces the holy season with words from the Gospel according to St. Matthew (9:36): “Jesus, at the sight of the crowds, was moved with pity.” The compassionate gaze of Jesus fell upon people he wanted to lift up from their misery, from poverty and physical hardship, loneliness and grief but also from the greater misery of sin and spiritual evil.

The Holy Father suggests we make a renewed Lenten effort of almsgiving, supporting initiatives of human development with real generosity. “In today’s rapidly changing world,” the Pope says, “our responsibility towards the poor emerges with ever greater clarity and urgency; indifference and self-centered isolation stand in stark contrast to the ‘gaze’ of Christ.”

At the same time, the Pope urges, “it is impossible to separate the response to people’s material and social needs from the fulfillment of the profound desires of their hearts.” Jesus brings an integral salvation, health and healing for both soul and body. Lent alerts us anew to our obligation to continue to teach the dignity of the human person, to educate consciences, to proclaim the truth of Christ’s message to all.

We have a particular opportunity with this year of evangelization, beginning with the Festival of Faith Feb. 16-18, continuing with the talks being given by Father Robert Barron in various parishes and featuring 24-hour availability of the sacrament of penance. (See The Interview, Page 7, and opportunities for spiritual renewal through Mission Chicago events on Page 19.) In the first instance, this campaign is an outreach to inactive Catholics, a call to the conversion God calls each of us to. The Holy Father also urges us “to proclaim the truth of Christ” to all who do not know him or who have left him out of their lives. This call to call others becomes more urgent as unbelief shapes the public square more and more.

“He who does not give God gives too little,” Pope Benedict reminds us. The gaze of compassion that we turn toward others, to those in need and those for whom we are responsible, will be the merciful gaze of Christ only if we are in his friendship. Lent is a time to make a good sacramental confession of our sins, to renew our relationship with God in personal prayer, to examine our relationships with others so that these are truthful, chaste, loving.

Lent, of course, leads to Easter, “the victory of Christ over every evil that oppresses us.” The joy of Easter will be more intense if we shall have met the challenge given us by the Holy Father: “What we need most at this moment of history are people who make God visible in this world through their enlightened and lived faith … people who have their eyes fixed straight on God and who learn from him what true humanity is.” This Lent let us keep each other in prayer, fasting and almsgiving. God bless you.

Cardinal's Column Archive