DIVINE LENTEN 2016 Message
“I COME TO GIVE YOU LIFE; LIFE IN THE FULL"
(John 10:10)
Wishing you and your loved ones a Most Holy & Sacred Season of Lent.
The season of Lent is not so much a sad season of mourning and lamentation. It is a time we turn to the LORD with great joy. In our day-to-day life, we are busy with our day-to-day living. We want to make our life more secure and comfortable on this earth. In this process we forget God. We imagine what gives us joy is a bundle of things of this passing world. We want to amass more wealth and buy up a lot of things to make our lives more comfortable and easy.
What we truly do is to slip away from the source of real joy who is God. And Jesus is telling us in John Ch. 15:11, “I say these things that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.” It is the fullness of joy that Jesus offers us. And again Jesus tell us. “I give you my peace not as the world gives. The world is not able to give the peace that I give you.” (cf John 14:27) And again Jesus tells us John 10:10, “I come to give you life; life in the full.” Jesus the Lord our God is the source of the Fullness of Joy, Peace and Life. Unfortunately we have turned away from Him in search of happiness in the passing things of the world. This is the time the Lord is inviting us to turn to Him and to find the joy of our living. When we spend our time in prayer, we want to understand the prayer is being near to our God who is waiting to fill us. With every fast, we want to affirm to ourselves and others that man does not live on bread alone. It is the Word of God that really fills our hearts.
In this time we also turn to the poor and the less-privileged in order to share our wealth what God has given us with them - in order to be concerned about them. And therefore let us enter into this Season of Lent understanding well in our hearts that we are coming to the Source of Life and Joy. We are turning away from the created things to the Creator to find our life in Him! We deny ourselves the pleasures of the body in order to proclaim that our soul is what we care for. With this realization, there should be meaning to all our observances during this Holy Season of Lent.
Ashes have been always considered as a sign that everything created is passing away. When we smear our foreheads with the ashes in the sign of the cross, we are proclaiming to ourselves and to the world that it is God that we all belong to.
We are going to begin our season of fasting and prayer. The holy scriptures invite us to fast and pray and thus turn away from the material things and turn to God - to give God the prime place in our hearts. Let us be armed with the weapons of self-restraint.
Let us open our hearts to those in need, and to those in pain - that God’s Mercy will pour from our hearts into them. Thus in this Year of Mercy, let us make our Lenten observance a form of opening our hearts to others in needs as well.
“In an acceptable time I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you.”
(2 Corinthians 6:1)
Yours in Christ+
Fr. Augustine Vallooran V.C.
Director - Divine Retreat Centre