Gospel Reflection 2021/2022

This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday. Though it is not a Day of Obligation, it is a Day of Fast and Abstinence. It is the time in the liturgical year when we the Catholic faithful would flock to Church for Mass to receive the imposition (or sprinkling) of ashes on our foreheads. And the priest reminds us with these words, “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” OR “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”. Every Ash Wednesday, we are reminded of the urgency of repentance and the frailty of our life.

With Ash Wednesday, the Season of Lent begins. The forty days of Lent is a time of penance and purification, a time for renewed repentance of our sins, a time to turn towards God once again, and get ourselves ready for the Passion, Death and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

'Now is the favourable time,

this is the day of salvation!’

[2 Co 6:2]

1) This is the time for purification, renewal and regeneration.

During Noah’s time, God sent rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights [Gn 7: 4] – bringing an end to vice and the beginning of virtue. Lent is our spiritual spring.

2) This is the time for intense prayer.

Moses was on the mountain with God for forty days and forty nights [Ex 24: 18]. Likewise, we must find time to pray and find means to deepen our prayer life.

3) This is the time to be moulded by God.

God led Israel in the desert for forty years [Dt 8: 2]. Fasting and abstinence help us master our own desires and regulate ourselves. Only when we are detached from the earthly pleasures and our inordinate addictions, can we be moulded more perfectly by God.

4) This is the journey of faith to re-encounter God.

Elijah walked for forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God [cf. 1 Kg 19: 8]. Perhaps we have wandered far away from God. Perhaps our minds have grown dull and our hearts have turned coarse. Perhaps we have shut our eyes not to see Him, closed our ears not to hear Him. Now is the appropriate time to return to the Lord. Now is the favourable time to stop wandering and come back to Him who loves us. Yes, it is never too late; for with God, nothing is impossible. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a small single step forward.

5) This is the time for renewed repentance and conversion of heart and mind.

'“Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.' [Jon 3: 4-5] And God saw the sincerity of hearts of the people of Nineveh, and the whole city was spared. Today, God continues to call every person and every nation to repentance.

6) This is the time to be united with Jesus in the desert.

Jesus Himself prayed and fasted in the desert for forty days [cf. Mt 4: 2, Mk 1: 13, Lk 4: 2]. By the solemn forty days of Lent, the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert [CCC 540]. United with Jesus our Lord, we will once again renounce the three principal enemies of our souls: the flesh, the world and the devil. United with Jesus our Lord, we will deny ourselves, carry our cross, follow His footsteps up to Calvary, to die with Him and to live for Him.

Let our fervent prayer be:

“Lord Jesus Christ, let me be united with You always.”

Let us also pray with and pray for Ukraine that:

“The weapons of war may be silenced, and those who hold the fate of the world in their hands may spare us from the horror of war.”