While the Lenten season, with its focus on penance and conversion, is not usually associated with joy, Pope Leo started off the season by giving it a surprising positive twist -- even for those who are not Catholic.
He began his homily at the Basilica of Santa Sabina recognizing the "grace of being Church," and stressing that "Lent remains a powerful time for community." Already here, he shows how this season is an offering not just for the Church but for the world.
"We know that it has become increasingly difficult to gather people together and make them feel like a community — not in a nationalistic and aggressive way, but in a communion where each of us finds our place," he said.
Lent, he said, forms "a people" -- a people that "recognizes its sins," and not sins that have come from "enemies" but rather that "exist within us."
"We need to respond by courageously accepting responsibility for them."
Attractive option
While this is admittedly countercultural, according to Pope Leo, it is also "an authentic, honest, and attractive option, especially in our times."
Why? Because it is "so easy to feel powerless in the face of a world that is in flames." Sin is personal but takes shape in the "real and virtual contexts of life" ... with economic, cultural, political, and "even religious 'structures of sin.'"
Scripture teaches us that opposing idolatry with worship of the living God means daring to be free, and rediscovering freedom through an exodus, a journey, where we are no longer paralyzed, rigid, or complacent in our positions, but gathered together to move and change.
How rare it is to find adults who repent — individuals, businesses, and institutions that admit they have done wrong!
The invitation of Ash Wednesday
This "possibility of repentance" is at the heart of Lent. And "it is no coincidence that, even in secularized contexts, many young people, more than in the past, are open to the invitation of Ash Wednesday."
"Young people especially understand clearly that it is possible to live a just lifestyle, and that there should be accountability for wrongdoings in the Church and in the world," the Pope said. "We must therefore start where we can, with those who are around us."
In this sense, Lent is a missionary time, something to be offered to the "many restless people of good will who are seeking authentic ways to renew their lives, within the context of the Kingdom of God and his justice."
Calling to mind a 60-year-old reflection from Pope St. Paul VI, Pope Leo said that like the "fundamental pessimism" that his predecessor saw in the 1960s, we see "ashes" today ... ashes of the "weight of a world that is ablaze, of entire cities destroyed by war"; ashes of "international law and justice among peoples"; and ashes too of "critical thinking and ancient local wisdom" and the "sense of the sacred."
[H]istory, and even more, our own conscience, asks us to call death for what it is, and to carry its marks within us while also bearing witness to the resurrection. We recognize our sins so that we can be converted; this is itself a sign and testimony of Resurrection. Indeed, it means that we will not remain among the ashes, but will rise up and rebuild.
Read the full homily below:
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