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Lent
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My dear brothers and sisters,
Praise be Jesus Christ now and forever!
Today, Ash Wednesday, we begin this wonderful journey that we call Lent. This is a spiritual journey, a sort of pilgrimage, as we go on our way toward the Eastern Mysteries, which we will celebrate during Holy Week and at the Easter Triduum.
This time of Lent is a time of spiritual preparation, sort of a retreat, for all of us to enter into the spirit of this time. We embrace certain spiritual practices:
Prayer. I encourage us all, myself included, to spend more time in prayer during these days.
Almsgiving. To be generous, more generous than we usually are toward those who are in need around us in our communities and so desperately in need of God's love through us.
And to those Works of Penance that we do during Lent, those mortifications, the dying of self that teach us how to discipline our will and to sacrifice for others. So whatever penances we might embrace, whatever we might give up, we do that in a spirit of renewal and spiritual growth during these days of Lent.
As the scriptures will remind us this coming Sunday, the first Sunday of Lent, our Lord went out into the desert for 40 days and 40 nights to prepare himself for the beginning of his public ministry. So, we imitate our divine Savior as we go into these 40 Days of our preparation, so that at Easter we can renew our baptismal promises with our minds and our hearts renewed.
I will see you all at Easter and please keep me in your prayers during these days of Lent, so that your Shepherd will grow spiritually, and please know that you are all in my heart and in my prayers, that God will do wonderful things in your life during this special time.
God bless you.
Archbishop Alexander K. Sample
Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon
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