Ash Wednesday - Lent is All About Love

From the Catholic Liturgy for Ash Wednesday, March 1, 2017. Matthew 6:1-18. In today’s Gospel Jesus gives us the 3 spiritual practices which focus on the relationships we have with God, others and ourselves: prayer, almsgiving and fasting. While we are meant to carry out these three practices all year long, they are especially emphasized during Lent because Lent is, above all else, a Season of Love and of Relationships, because Christianity itself is a religion centered upon Love and Relationships. In the order of priority, our first relationship is that with God. We owe Him first place because He created us, He gives us life and keeps us in existence. He takes care of our needs and has promised to be with those who seek Him. Can you imagine what our human relationships would be like if we never made time to be with the ones we love? We never sit down and talk with them or never give our attention and listen to them? So Jesus tells us to pray to our Father and to do so in the quiet of solitude. The next relationship we should evaluate as we begin this Season of Lent is that with others, especially those who are in need. Almsgiving means the financial assistance we give to the needy and Jesus tells us it should be done without the desire to be praised and rewarded in this life. That makes a lot of sense if we remember that a giving-relationship focuses on the needs of the other and on me. Finally, Jesus gives us a third spiritual practice of love: fasting, which can also be any form of penance, of self-denial. This is meant to help us develop and preserve a healthy love for ourselves, one that is not self-centered and self-seeking. This is where we get our custom of giving something up for Lent.  And when it comes to deciding what to do, each of us should chose something that it small, simple, doable but directly to the point for something in our character that we know needs a bit of training. Bu embracing these three spiritual practices of love we can become more conscious of God’s real presence in our lives and, through us, God’s love can become more real in the lives of others.