This is the First Sunday of Lent. Our Lord Jesus calls us to repent and believe in the good news.
In Lent, we engage in the penitential disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Our Lord was driven out by the Holy Spirit into the desert. To fast is to deprive oneself voluntarily of something that is good. We can fast from certain foods or beverages, from certain entertainment, or from certain behaviours. As we fast, we discover an inner hunger in ourselves. We discover an inner longing. Many, many times during the year, we try to quench this hunger, we try to satisfy this longing by enjoying things that may be good, but that may in the end distract us from the task at hand. As we step back from the things that help us to cope, we may even experience a certain anxiety or restlessness. In that anxiety or restlessness, we may be able to discover a deeper hunger, deeper thirst. What do we do when we experience this thirst, this hunger? We should turn to prayer. It is interesting that in the Office of Readings from the Breviary, right after the penitential discipline of Ash Wednesday, the reading spoke about prayer. It is prayer that will help us engage with spiritual benefit in the great season of Lent, and it is prayer that will help us to engage with spiritual benefit in our Lenten disciplines.
Can we develop a taste for prayer? Certainly, as we can develop a taste for certain foods or activities. Prayer, to many people, may not come naturally, but this does not mean that prayer needs to be overly difficult. In prayer, we put on the mind of Christ; we get God’s perspective on our lives, and on the lives of others. In prayer, we are able to orient ourselves in our pilgrimage. In prayer, we are reminded of the covenant that God has with us, as today’s First Reading said. It also needs to be said that if a person does not pray, then he or she is spiritually sick, because we lose out on the graces that God desires to give us. We need prayer, daily prayer, we need to come to Christ on a frequent basis. Sunday Mass is not enough; we need to pray every day of the week.
Pope Francis, in anticipation of the Jubilee Year of 2025, has declared 2024 to be a Year of Prayer. He wrote, “From now on I am happy to think that the year…2024, will be dedicated to a great ‘symphony’ of prayer. First of all, to recover the desire to be in the presence of the Lord, to listen to him and adore him” (https://www.iubilaeum2025.va/en/giubileo-2025/verso-il-giubileo/2024-anno-della-preghiera.html). So, we are to recover – or rediscover the desire to be in God’s presence, to listen to Him, and to adore Him. Adoration is that time we spend in front of God, often in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, when we don’t have an agenda. Adoration is spending time with the Lord without a set program. Certainly, we have various ways of praying: we can say the Rosary, say the Liturgy of the Hours, read Holy Scripture in a meditative way, we can engage in devotions such as the Way of the Cross or Litanies. Certainly, the prayer of a busy parent with young children will be different from the prayer of a senior, who lives alone. However, times of Adoration should also figure into our busy lives.
In the words of Pope Benedict, we should allow Mary to “teach us the need for prayer” (Benedict XVI, General Audience, March 14 2012, https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2012/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20120314.html). Mary can help us develop a taste for prayer, Our Lady can help us to pray when we do not know how to do so. As we begin, in earnest, the holy season of Lent, with this First Sunday of Lent, let us repent, and believe the Good News. May we use this time also to rediscover, or deepen, our taste for prayer.
(Fr. Paweł Ratajczak, OMI, Feb. 18, 2024)