A few days ago, we began the season of Lent. During this period of preparation for the celebration of Easter, the liturgy invites us to enter into a privileged experience of being in the presence of Jesus. Saint Mark tells us that after Jesus was baptized, the Spirit drove him into the wilderness for forty days (Mk 1:12-13) so we can take comfort in the fact that as we begin this Lenten experience, we are not alone. Jesus is travelling with us along the road.
We might begin by asking ourselves: What is it that I hope to accomplish this Lent? Each of us needs to grow in some way, so Lent allows us to stop what we are doing, to look around us so that we can get our bearings, and then to return to the Father who is waiting for us with outstretched arms.
The first reading for today’s liturgy, taken from the Book of Genesis, reminds us of the story of Noah and his family who were saved from the flood. After the waters had receded, God established a covenant with Noah and his descendants ... (Gn 9:10). Our God is always faithful to his word. He remembers the covenant he made with Noah and establishes a covenant with each one of us at the time of our Baptism.
All these many centuries later, we need to stop during the season of Lent so that we can remember that God has created a covenant with each one of us. Perhaps as time has gone by, we have forgotten how precious we are in the sight of God, but he has never forgotten.
We need to look around us: look at the life that we have lived up to now and ask ourselves whether we have been faithful to the covenant that God created on the day of our Baptism. If not, this is the favourable time for us to be honest with ourselves and with God. He is appealing to our consciences (cf 1 Pet 3:21) and asking us to be true to ourselves and true to him.
The Church teaches that Baptism cannot be repeated, but if our journey this Lent should indeed lead us to recognize the fact that we have strayed from the original joy of knowing that each one of us is a precious and beloved child of God, we can still return to the Father through the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
A few years ago, the entire Church was invited to live a Year of Mercy: a time when we were all invited to encounter God the Father’s merciful heart. Many people took advantage of that special year to rediscover the joy of Baptism and the power of the Sacrament of Reconciliation, but even after we have encountered the merciful heart of God and celebrated his forgiveness, there is always the challenge of keeping our consciences clean after we have received absolution. The answer to that question is simple because the Sacrament of Reconciliation does not just allow us to rid ourselves of our sins; it also fills us with God’s grace so that we can face the future.
As we set out on our journey this week, let us pray for the grace to walk with Jesus. He came to forgive our sins but also to make us holy. Let us ask him to help us to come back home, into the loving embrace of our Father.
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