Today
the first Friday of Lent, having experienced
the fasting and abstinence of Ash Wednesday, we have attempted to
offer our fasting and the prayer of the Holy Rosary,
for the Peace, thet our World needs so badly. We
are willing to take care of this Lenten exercise, our Church, Mother
and Teacher, is asking us to abide by, and to remember it was the
same Lord who said: «Time will come when the bridegroom will be
taken away from them, then they will fast» (Mt
9:15). We have the desire to experience it, not
just as the fulfillment of an obligation which is mandatory for us,
but —most of all— as the possibility to find the spirit
which will let us live this Lenten practice while helping us in our
spiritual improvement.
By
seeking this deep feeling, we can ask ourselves: which is the true
fasting? Already, prophet Isaiah, in
today's first reading, tells us which is the fasting God appreciates:
«Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide
the poor wanderer with shelter —when you see the naked, to
clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?Then
your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will
quickly appear, then your righteousness will go before you, and the
glory of the Lord will be your rear guard» (Is 58:7-8).
God likes and expects from us whatever is taking us towards a true
love for all our brothers.
Every
year, the Holy Father John Paul II wrote us a message for Lent. One
of these messages, under the motto «There is more happiness in
giving than there is in receiving» (Acts 20:35);
helped us to discover the very same charitable dimension of our
fasting, which, from the bottom of our heart, allows us to prepare
for Easter Time, in an effort to identify ourselves, more and more,
with Christ's love which took him to die in the Cross for us. In
short, «what every Christian ought to do all the time, he ought
to do it now more carefully and more devotedly» (Saint Leo the
Great, pope).
