Readings of the day: RB 30 The Correction of the Children
Mass: Dt 4:1, 5-9; Resp Ps 147; Mt 5:17-19
If sometimes the flame of charity seems to die in our hearts,
it never dies in the heart of God!
(Pope Francis, Twitter, March 7, 2018)
This morning I returned to Pope Francis’ 2018 Lenten Message. The Holy Father suggests we ask ourselves ‘how it happens that charity can turn cold within us.’ In other words, ‘What are the signs that indicate that our love is beginning to cool?’ If we notice signs of love grown cold, as I like to call it, he suggests ‘the soothing remedy of prayer, almsgiving and fasting.’
Pope Francis elaborates:
By devoting more time to prayer, we enable our hearts to root out our secret lies and forms of self-deception, and then to find the consolation God offers. He is our Father and he wants us to live life well.
Almsgiving sets us free from greed and helps us to regard our neighbor as a brother or sister…If through me God helps someone today, will he not tomorrow provide for my own needs? For no one is more generous than God.
Fasting weakens our tendency to violence; it disarms us and becomes an important opportunity for growth. On the one hand, it allows us to experience what the destitute and the starving have to endure. On the other hand, it expresses our own spiritual hunger and thirst for life in God. Fasting wakes us up.
Is there a remedy that needs to be applied today?
YOU WILL SHOW ME THE PATH OF LIFE,
THE FULLNESS OF JOY IN YOUR PRESENCE, O LORD.
(Communion Antiphon, Mass)
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