CHANCERY NOTICE

CN/3/003/2019

Pope’s 2019 Lenten Message calls for conversion

In his message for Lent, Pope Francis warns that once God’s law is forsaken, the law of the strong over the weak takes over. Pope Francis is calling on the faithful not to let the Lenten season of grace pass in vain, and to live as children of God acknowledging and obeying His law, in particular in regards to our brothers and sisters and to creation. The theme chosen this year is “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God” (Rom 8:19)

In this year’s Lenten message, the Pope invites believers to prepare to celebrate the paschal mystery with mind and heart renewed, warning that “Sin leads man to consider himself the god of creation, to see himself as its absolute master and to use it, not for the purpose willed by the Creator but for his own interests”.

“Let us leave behind our selfishness and self-absorption, and turn to Jesus’ Pasch. Let us stand beside our brothers and sisters in need, sharing our spiritual and material goods with them”.

FASTING, PRAYER, ALMSGIVING

“The Lent of the Son of God ‘was an entry into the desert of creation to make it become again that garden of communion with God’” that it was before the original sin, Christians today are invited “to embody the paschal mystery more deeply and concretely in their personal, family and social lives, above all by fasting, prayer and almsgiving.”

FASTING, means turning away from the temptation to “devour” everything to satisfy our voracity;
PRAYER, teaches us to abandon idolatry and the self-sufficiency of our ego;
ALMSGIVING, whereby we escape from the insanity of hoarding everything for ourselves in the illusory belief that we can secure a future that does not belong to us.

If we follow this journey, he said it “is possible to rediscover the joy of God’s plan for creation and for each of us, which is to love him, our brothers and sisters, and the entire world, and to find in this love our true happiness.” The path to Easter, therefore, demands that “we renew our faces and hearts as Christians through repentance, conversion and forgiveness” … it is a call that involves the whole of creation.

1. ASH WEDNESDAY (March 6) – To mark the beginning of Lent, Mass of the Proper of Ash Wednesday, with the blessing and distribution of ashes, is to be celebrated. Fasting and abstinence are to be observed according to the “Norms on the practice of fasting and abstinence.”

2. FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT (March 10) – On this day, the Rite of Election for the candidates of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) is carried out following the arrangement in their respective parishes.

One of the requirements of the Christian life is to do penance, i.e., to convert by repenting for one’s sins and doing mortification. To repent is an act of faith whose end is to love and to turn back to God. Without this conversion, the repentance becomes mere formalism.

I. ABSTINENCE AND FASTING are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and on the Friday of the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ (Good Friday).

II. OBLIGATORY DAYS FOR ABSTINENCE: Abstinence is to be observed on Fridays throughout the year, unless they are liturgical solemnities, feast days and important Chinese festivities identified by the local Church authority.

III. AGE FOR OBSERVING FASTING AND ABSTINENCE: