Lent: The Church on Retreat

This year, Lent takes on a slightly different emphasis as the Church also observes the Jubilee Year of Mercy. Mercy, it is naturally part of Lent.

In the Bull of Indiction proclaiming the Year of Mercy, Pope Francis asked that “the season of Lent in this Jubilee Year be lived more intensely as a privileged moment to celebrate and experience God’s mercy.” “God’s mercy transforms human hearts; it enables us, through the experience of a faithful love, to become merciful in turn,” Pope Francis wrote in his Lenten Message this year.

The pope has asked Catholics to devote themselves during the Jubilee to the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy. “These works remind us that faith finds expression in concrete everyday actions meant to help our neighbors in body and spirit: by feeding, visiting, comforting and instructing them. On such things will we be judged.” Pope Francis talks often of caring for the sick and visiting people in prisons. That work becomes even more important during the Year of Mercy.

Another feature that Lent and the Year of Mercy have in common is an emphasis on the Sacrament of Reconciliation. During the Year of Mercy, Pope Francis urges, “Let us place the Sacrament of Reconciliation at the center once more in such a way that it will enable people to touch the grandeur of God’s mercy with their own hands. For every penitent, it will be a source of true interior peace.”

We go to Confession for the little things at every Mass. We do an Act of Contrition. The priest prays the Prayer of Absolution. In the hearing of the Word, the reception of the Eucharist and going forth … we receive mercy. We receive forgiveness for our sins. … But for most of us there are things we still drag around like a ball and chain. It impacts our freedom to be fully alive. For these more serious sins, we have this great gift of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The pope’s description of the Church as a field hospital “makes so much sense in that context.

In this Jubilee Year, may the Church echo the word of God that resounds strong and clear as a message and a sign of pardon, strength, aid, and love. May she never tire of extending mercy, and be ever patient in offering compassion and comfort. May the Church become the voice of every man and woman, and repeat confidently without end: “Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old” ( Ps 25:6).


Prayer of Pope Francis for the Jubilee "Year of Mercy"
Lord Jesus Christ, you have taught us to be merciful like the heavenly Father, and have told us that whoever sees you sees Him. Show us your face and we will be saved. Your loving gaze freed Zacchaeus and Matthew from being enslaved by money; the adulteress and Magdalene from seeking happiness only in created things; made Peter weep after his betrayal, and assured Paradise to the repentant thief. Let us hear, as if addressed to each one of us, the words that you spoke to the Samaritan woman: “If you knew the gift of God!” You are the visible face of the invisible Father, of the God who manifests his power above all by forgiveness and mercy: let the Church be your visible face in the world, its Lord risen and glorified.
You willed that your ministers would also be clothed in weakness in order that they may feel compassion for those in ignorance and error: let everyone who approaches them feel sought after, loved, and forgiven by God. Send your Spirit and consecrate every one of us with its anointing, so that the Jubilee of Mercy may be a year of grace from the Lord, and your Church, with renewed enthusiasm, may bring good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives and the op-pressed, and restore sight to the blind. We ask this of you, Lord Jesus, through the intercession of Mary, Mother of Mercy; you who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.

In his Lenten Message, Pope Francis wrote: “Let us not waste this season of Lent, so favorable a time for conversion. God’s mercy transforms human hearts; it enables us, through the experience of a faithful love, to become merciful in turn.”
May the peace of God be upon you as we walk hand in hand to the Father.