“Dear
Confreres and Consoeurs,
Lent is
a "time of grace" in which we are invited to experience the
unconditional love of our merciful Father who, despite our sins, forgives us,
welcomes us and celebrates with us.
To this
love we must correspond with a profound change in our mindset, and renew our
hearts, in order to widen our hearts and fill them with feelings of goodness,
mercy, forgiveness, kindness and care for the weak. During Lent the Church
urges us to follow Jesus Christ, the first great fighter of evil. He who
resisted temptation and emerged victorious after forty days in the desert.
As a
Military Order we must ask ourselves about the meaning of spiritual fighting, a
key element towards building up a human personality, even before a Christian
personality, solid and mature. It is not possible to build up a strong human
and spiritual personality without suffering that inner struggle, nor discerning
between good and evil, in order to be able to shout a loud 'yes' and a
determined 'no'.
For
Christians, spiritual fight is a requirement inherent in baptism, and helps
define their own identity of faith: "Through baptism, a Christian is
committed to always wear his military uniform, and to carry what Paul calls
'the weapons of justice' (Rom 6.13-14) and an 'armor of light' (Rom 13:12)."
The New
Testament focuses occasionally on describing the Christian life as a fight,
"What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this,
that your passions are at war within you?" (James 4.1). "Abstain from
sinful desires, which wage war against your soul." (1 Peter 2:11).
St. Paul
speaks about "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world”.
On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish
arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of
God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."(2
Cor 10.3-5).
St. Paul
speaks in his letter to the Ephesians about a fight in the proper sense, in
view of which we must be attentive and aware, "Therefore put on the full
armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your
ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the
belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness
in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the
gospel of peace.
Message
for Lent 2015 from the Ecclesiastical Grand Prior of the Order 2015-03-14
In
addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can
extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation
and the sword of the Spirit, which is
the word of God." (Eph 6.11-17).
The
spiritual struggle requires us to prepare every fiber of our being to the
action worked in us by God. The worst thing in fighting temptation is to
believe that we fight alone. Not at all, for this is why God extends his hand
and fights for us and with us.
Pope
Francis asks us in his message for Lent this year to overcome indifference and
self-sufficiency pretensions, to live this time of Lent as training of the
heart, (as Benedict XVI said. Lett. Enc. Deus Caritas Est, 31).
This
requires a strong heart: "Having a merciful heart does not mean having a
weak heart. He who is willing to be merciful needs a strong, firm heart, shut to
tempters, but open to God. A heart penetrated by the Spirit of love and a guide
through those roads that lead us to brothers and sisters. A poor heart, a heart
that knows about its condition and is willing to give everything it has".
We can
also mention "a courageous heart", a heart capable of fighting for
justice with the poor and avoiding violence to spread out.
Lent is
not a time of weak cowardice. Instead, it is a time when dropping our
self-sufficiency and gaining self-consciousness in God's mercy, allow us to
arrive at this "blessed fight", where all our worries towards victory
are already fully placed in the hands of the Lord, who defeated Satan.
I pray
to the Lord Jesus for you to also have a strong and merciful heart, which shall
be generous and vigilant. Do not let it harden and fall into the vertigo of
this globalized indifference we live in.
Monreale
March 1, 2015
+
Michele Pennisi, EGCLJ
Archbishop
of Monreale
Ecclesiastical
Grand Prior of the Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalém”
