The First Week of Lent

Many of us have a sincere desire to observe Lent, but later on for some reasons falter. Someone exclaimed about the liturgy, “The Mass is long!” A saint replied, “… because your love is short.”

The previous Pope explained the overwhelming goodness of God to our first parents, yet, they were dazzled by the serpent’s logical, deceitful presentation, and thus they succumbed to “forgetfulness” toward the generosity of God, in the garden of everything, of Eden. How could they? A close introspection betrays our ways. We are like them.

Moreover, the same Pope comments, “The Lord does not cling to His autonomy, to the infinitude of what He can do and wills to do.” Hence, in His total dependence to His Father in the garden of Gethsemane, He found His freedom. He wants to serve and found life. In contrast, our first parents in the garden of disobedience, wanted to be like God, to create themselves their own world—a world of death; as a consequence, they only found burden and emptiness.

When we consider the serpent that hangs on a tree and Jesus who hangs on a cross, how could we not fall and grow in love with the Lord, made present in the Mass? So, is the Mass long?

Holy Mary, pray for us.