Opinion
The Season of Lent in the Year 2022 begins today!
Lent is the period of 40 days which comes before Easter in the Christian Tradition. Beginning on Ash Wednesday, that is today, Lent is a season of reflection and preparation before the celebration of Easter, commemorating the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ for us and for our salvation!
By observing the 40 day period of Lent, Christians remember and experience Jesus Christ’s withdrawal into the desert for 40 days in preparation to start His public life and the mission entrusted to Him by God the Father.
During the Season of Lent, Christians pray, fast and make sacrifices in a special manner. This is known as one’s Lenten observance.
His Holiness Pope Francis’ Lenten Message for the Year 2022 : “Sow Seeds of Goodness”
It is a custom in the Catholic Church that every year the Holy Father proposes a timely theme for meditation and reflection during the Season of Lent by the faithful and gives a short message based on the same. In his message for Lent 2022, Pope Francis invites the faithful to sow seeds of goodness, so that we might reap a bountiful harvest of salvation for ourselves and for others.
This spiritual endeavour is to be practised in a context in which humanity faces great threats from almost all the spheres connected with human life and existence.
At a moment like this, Pope Francis has based his message for Lent 2022 on a Scripture Passage taken from St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians,
“Let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap our harvest, if we do not give up. So then, while we have the opportunity, let us do good to all” (Galatians 6:9-10).
Beginning with the vivid image of ‘sowing and reaping’, the Holy Father points out that the Season of Lent invites us to conversion, to a genuine change of heart and mind, so that life’s truth and beauty may be found not so much in possessing as in giving, not so much in accumulating as in sowing and sharing goodness.
According to what is highlighted by the Holy Father, God is the first to sow, sowing “abundant seeds of goodness in our human family.” During this grace-filled Season of Lent, “we are called to respond to God’s gift” by listening to His Word, so that it might “bear fruit in our lives.” In this way, we become “God’s co-workers,” which is a grace of sharing in God’s Own “bountiful goodness.”
This, in turn, leads to a harvest. When we sow seeds of goodness and kindness, “no matter how small,” in our own lives, we radiate light and carry “the fragrance of Christ to the world.” Recalling the Scripture Proverb, “one sows, while another reaps” (cf. John 4:37), Pope Francis reminds us that “we see only a small portion of the fruits of what we sow.” The Pope goes on explaining that “sowing goodness for the benefit of others frees us from narrow self-interest, infuses us our actions with gratuitousness, and makes us part of the magnificent horizon of God’s Benevolent Plan of Salvation.”
The Holy Father goes on to connect St. Paul’s words to the Galatians to the traditional Lenten practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. “Let us not grow tired of praying,” he says, realizing that we need God and others. “Let us not grow tired of uprooting evil from our lives,” embracing fasting in order “to fortify our spirit for the battle against sin,” especially through the Sacrament of Confession and by fighting against concupiscence. “Let us not grow tired of doing good in active charity towards our neighbour,” giving joyfully and generously to others, especially those in most need of our love, care and mercy.
Pope Francis says that each year during the Season of Lent “we are reminded that goodness, together with love, justice, and solidarity, are not achieved once and for all; they have to be realised each day and each moment with effort.”
The Holy Father concludes his message for the Season of Lent 2022 by reminding us that “the soil is prepared by fasting, watered by prayer, and enriched by works of charity.”
He also invites us, once again, not to grow tired of doing good, and calls us to “believe firmly that ‘if we do not give up, we shall reap our harvest in due time’, and that, with the gift of perseverance, we shall obtain what was promised, for our salvation and the salvation of the entire human family.”
Prayer
Heavenly Father, soften the soil that is my heart and water it with the graces of Lent through prayer, fasting and acts of charity that it may blossom like the lily so that, with boldness, I may proclaim to the whole world at Easter:
Christ the Saviour is Truly Risen from the Dead!
Rev. Fr. Eymard Fernando
Catholic Bishop’s House,
Kurunegala.