A Holy Lent

Hello Everyone:
Well - Ash Wednesday has come and gone. We are now into the 4th day of Lent already. I have posted the information on the 3rd week of the Total Consecration under Formation. This too is going fast as we are in the middle of our study and prayer for this Consecration or Renewal to be done on March 25th.

I have the privilege of some meditation books that my now deceased mother purchases at a book sale quite a while ago (copyright 1945). These are written by a Capuchin friar for all the days of the year. I will share with you some of the great helps he wrote for this great season of Lent. Below are some excerpts taken from "Meditations" written by Fr. Bernardine Goebel, OFM Cap.    Enjoy!

PRAYER
"Prayer is the most natural expression of our relation to God as His children. It is a sacred privilege of the redeemed children of God. According to St. John Baptist Vianney " prayer should be as much a matter of course as breathing." But how little is this true of ourselves! We are so occupied by our daily cares. We need to raise our hearts and mind to God in little prayers throughout our day in order to preserve our union with God. It is through prayer only that exterior mortification receives its inner-most power of renovation and its higher consecration. Prayer endows penance with power."

THE ALMS OF MINISTERING CHARITY
"The object of all penance and prayer performed during this holy season of Lent is :God's mercy. However, we shall find it only if we ourselves show mercy and charity towards our fellowman, for herein genuine fasting is made pleasing to God and is rendered perfect. Not only are we called to minister charity but also to have forgiving charity. "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute and calumniate you, so that you may be the children of your Father in heaven, who makes his sun rise on the good and the evil, and sends rain on the just and the unjust." (Matt 5:44) This forgiving, indulgent and patient charity is a Lenten sacrifice which assures us God's indulgence and mercy in greater measure than any exterior mortification."

SPIRIT IN WHICH WE SHOULD FAST
"Rend your hearts and not your garments, and turn to the Lord your God; for He is gracious and merciful, patient and rich in mercy". (Joel 2:13) The mortification of the outward man, therefore, must be accompanied by interior detachment from sin, by the spirit of true repentance, and must be the expression of the latter. Without breaking with sin penance would be meaningless. The first point of our Lenten fasting should be to reawaken sincere sorrow for our sins, especially for our principal and habitual fault, and to resume an energetic war against it."

"Our penance during the season of Lent must be a heroic fighting and dying with Christ. For this reason the Church presents to us in her liturgy the gigantic battle of Christ with the prince of darkness; first of all, the interior element of this battle and then, during Passiontide, its culmination in His actual Passion and death. It is above all the loving immersion in the Passion of the Lord which will animate us, as nothing else can, with the desire to suffer and die with Christ by means of genuine penance. The meditation on the Passion must be particularly dear to us always but especially at this time."

"We adore You O Christ, and we praise You, because by Your Holy Cross - You have redeemed the world."

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