Published in WelCom March 2021

Lent is a time to reconsider the path one is taking in life and to finally answer God’s invitation to return to him with one’s whole heart, says Pope Francis.

Speaking in a homily at the Vatican on Ash Wednesday, 17 February 2021, the Pope said Lent was ‘about discerning where our hearts are directed – toward God or toward myself?’.

‘Lent is a journey of return to God. It is a time to reconsider the path we are taking, to find the route that leads us home and to rediscover our profound relationship with God, on whom everything depends,’ he said.

‘The journey of Lent is an exodus from slavery to freedom,’ he said, noting the easy temptations along that journey, including yearning for the past, or hindered by ‘unhealthy attachments, held back by the seductive snares of our sins, by the false security of money and appearances, by the paralysis of our discontents. To embark on this journey, we have to unmask these illusions.’

‘Pope at Ash Wednesday Mass: ‘Lent is a journey of return to God’

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2021-02/pope-francis-ash-wednesday-mass-lent-return-god.html

Homily of His Holiness Pope Francis, St Peter’s Basilica, Ash Wednesday, 17 February 2021

http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2021/documents/papa-francesco_20210217_omelia-ceneri.html

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