From cross to resurrection …

Ash Wednesday is tomorrow March 2nd.  Our Lenten Journey (from ‘cross to resurrection’ and from ‘ashes to light’) is ‘Your Journey’.  ‘Your Journey’ Lord,  that is now also ‘Our Journey’ with those suffering the unspeakable. Let us live this journey in appreciation of the opportunity it offers to simply and hopefully reconnect to that deepest knowing of what ‘resurrection’ actually is, and how it can shed its light, hope and courage in each moment of our lives, guiding our every action.

In his message for Lent 2022, Pope Francis calls writes:

Each year during Lent we are reminded that “goodness, together with love, justice and solidarity, are not achieved once and for all; they have to be realized each day”. Let us ask God to give us the patient perseverance of the farmer (cf. Jas 5:7), and to persevere in doing good, one step at a time.

If we fall, let us stretch out our hand to the Father, who always lifts us up. If we are lost, if we are misled by the enticements of the evil one, let us not hesitate to return to God, who “is generous in forgiving” (Is 55:7). In this season of conversion, sustained by God’s grace and by the communion of the Church, let us not grow tired of doing good. The soil is prepared by fasting, watered by prayer and enriched by charity. Let us believe firmly that “if we do not give up, we shall reap our harvest in due time”. [ … ] By cultivating fraternal love towards everyone, we are united to Christ, who gave his life for our sake (cf. 2 Cor 5:14-15), and we are granted a foretaste of the joy of the kingdom of heaven, when God will be “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28).

May the Virgin Mary, who bore the Saviour in her womb and “pondered all these things in her heart” (Lk 2:19), obtain for us the gift of patience. May she accompany us with her maternal presence, so that this season of conversion may bring forth fruits of eternal salvation.

Rome, Saint John Lateran, 11 November 2021, the Memorial of Saint Martin of Tours

A blessing for Ukraine

God, the unthinkable has happened.
Swiftly, relentlessly,
by stealth and through open destruction,
the peace and beauty of the ordinary,
has been shattered in a day.

O God of justice and might,
We call to you to come and bring this suffering to an end.
Comfort these trembling hearts.
Shield the vulnerable.

Strengthen those with the resources and the resolve
to protect what they love
in the face of such overwhelming force.

Grant wisdom to the nations of our world,
to our leaders, and to us,
to grasp the unfathomable,
to see evil in its true light,
and come against it unflinchingly.

Dear Ukraine,
though we shudder to watch what is happening
We will not look away.

~ Kate Bowler