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Lent: A Time for Change - There are defining moments in our personal lives, events showing us just who we are, helping us to better understand ourselves and, consequently, to make changes in our lives. Not only is this true in our daily lives but also in our spiritual lives. As change is not always easy, we are sometimes tempted to give up. Therefore, how do we do it?

Everything that Jesus lived on earth was meant to teach us. Let us look at Him when at the end of the forty days he spent in the desert, he clearly rejected the three proposed temptations which did not serve the purpose of his mission. The first in particular taunts him to prove that he is indeed the Son of God. He chooses instead to allow God to guide him in accordance with his ways and to fully rely upon him. His reaction has the ability of showing us that by resisting the cunningness of the tempter we become stronger. It keeps us grounded in humility, always reminding us that we are indebted to God for all the good we can accomplish.

We have the capacity to follow Him in this way if we want to. During this Lenten season, we have the opportunity to refocus and centre our lives on what is essential. This will bring us to say with the Apostle Paul, in this year dedicated to him, "Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Phil. 3.7-8).

The difficult times we are now experiencing call us to be morally strong as well as strong in the Spirit. The present financial crises may force us to restrain our propensity to consume to the point of greed and adopt a more simple life-style. We will have to closely reexamine our priorities. We need to learn to calculate and make choices that help us to distinguish between the superfluous and the essential. It is also important to return to a culture of sharing and to rediscover that we must first seek the Kingdom of God. We can no longer simply live as before. Conversion is essential. In any event, is conversion not always and everywhere to be pursued until Christ has completely transformed us by His light?

To properly welcome this light, the Church proposes three cherished lenten practices found within the Christian and Biblical tradition – prayer, almsgiving and fasting. In this year’s Lenten message, Pope Benedict XVI invites us to rediscover the spiritual value and meaning of fasting. This "denying material food, which nourishes our body, nurtures an interior disposition to listen to Christ. . . Through fasting and praying, we allow Him to come and satisfy the deepest hunger; the hunger and thirst for God. At the same time. . ., voluntary fasting enables us to grow in the spirit of the Good Samaritan, who goes to help the suffering."

In this context, let us give to the poor what we will have put aside from our lenten practice of fasting. Let us make the effort to spend more time in prayer and to participate in daily Eucharist. By praying, fasting and sharing we will be able to live this Lent as a defining moment affecting change in the course of our lives. Thus we will be able to be more closely united in Him and experience the newness of life that only the unconditional love of God can offer. A Blessed Lenten Season.