This year, the Lord once again grants us a season of grace—a sacred time to prepare our hearts anew for the great mystery of Jesus’ death and resurrection. This is the cornerstone of our personal and communal Christian life, a mystery we must continually return to in mind and spirit. For it grows within us only insofar as we open ourselves to its power and respond with freedom and generosity.
Christian joy is born from hearing and accepting this Good News. The kerygma reveals a love "so real, so true, so concrete, that it invites us to a relationship of openness and fruitful dialogue” (Christus Vivit, 117). To believe in this message is to reject the lie that our life is our own to do with as we please. Life, rather, flows from the love of God the Father, who desires to give it abundantly (cf. Jn 10:10). When we listen instead to the voice of the "father of lies” (Jn 8:44), we risk sinking into absurdity and experiencing hell here on earth—a tragedy too often witnessed in personal and collective human experience.
In this Lenten season, I echo what I wrote to the young in Christus Vivit: "Keep your gaze fixed on the outstretched arms of Christ crucified; let yourself be saved again and again. And when you come to confess your sins, believe firmly in his mercy that frees you from guilt. Contemplate his blood poured out with such love, and let yourself be purified by it.
Thus you will be able to be reborn forever” (no. 123). The Passion of Christ is not merely a distant memory; through the power of the Holy Spirit, it is made ever present, allowing us to see and touch the flesh of Christ in those who suffer.
Let us contemplate more deeply the Paschal Mystery, through which God’s mercy has been poured out upon us. For mercy is not an abstract idea—it is encountered in a face-to-face relationship with the crucified and risen Lord, "who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:20). This encounter happens in sincere dialogue, the kind shared among friends. That is why prayer is so vital during Lent. More than an obligation, it is our response to a love that always precedes and sustains us. Christians pray not because we are worthy, but because we are loved. Prayer may take many forms, but what matters to God is that it reaches deep within us—softening our hardened hearts and drawing us ever closer to Him and to His will.
