![]() We are called to go up with Christ to Jerusalem, the place where he will suffer and die before he will rise in glory. ![]() It is a “favorable time,” a season of grace. Who am I and what am I living for? Am I living for God and the community? We shall be invited to receive ashes on our foreheads with the invitation, “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel.” Away, then, with all masks and return to God, to your true self and to one another as God’s people. In this holy season we reflect on the true meaning of our lives. But today Lent begins, the time to put off our masks and to turn our face and heart to God and to people. In many regions of the world people celebrate carnival in the days before Lent with much noise and merrymaking. The penitential rite is omitted, since the rite of the ashes is a rite of penance and conversion. We express our brokenness and our readiness to change when, after the gospel, we receive the ashes. Now is the right time to return to God and to turn to the people around us. In many ways we have tried to be our own gods, to decide for ourselves what is right or wrong, and we have ended up by making ourselves the center of the world at the expense of ourselves, of God, of our neighbor. Why these forty days of penance? To return to our roots - to God, to our better selves - and consequently also to our neighbor. Today we begin our forty days of Lent, forty days of preparation for Easter.
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