“PRAYER OBTAINS MORE FROM GOD THAN IT ASKS FOR”

Dear friends,

Here we are living this special time of Lent. A time that calls us to essentiality, invites us to make that exercise and that constant effort to direct our whole life towards the one treasure and the one hope and to prepare our hearts for the resurrection of Jesus.

Today even more so, faced with the news of an unjust war, the images of suffering faces and bodies and the suffocated cries of children, we must continue to live, to do daily activities, even in bitterness and bewilderment. We can find meaning only by asking ourselves: what is essential in my life?

Each of us find an answer in our personal encounter with Christ, and in this favourable time three pearls that can accompany and help us on our journey of inner search: prayer, fasting and almsgiving.

Faced with war, we experience an immobility that disconcerts us. But let us not forget that prayer is a very powerful weapon with which we can ask for anything. As St. Francis de Sales reminds us, "Prayer obtains more from God than it asks for". So, let us not hesitate to ask and dare to ‘ask’, knowing that prayer comes before any action. It enlightens, directs and solves.

"Fasting as an experience of self-denial leads us to rediscover the gift of God and to understand our reality as creatures in His image and likeness, who find fulfilment in him. Understood and practised in this way, fasting helps us to love God and neighbor because, as Saint Thomas Aquinas sought to describe the love made possible by God’s grace as a movement outwards towards another, whereby we consider the beloved as somehow united to ourselves (cf. Encyclical Fratelli Tutti, 93). Let us live fasting as the denial not only of food, but of everything that is redundant in our lives. Let us take up Pope Francis' invitation to fast from everything that does not allow us to live a true and personal relationship with our neighbour".

"Let us do good without being discouraged; in due time we shall reap the reward for our constancy. So, while there is time, let us do good to all" (Gal 6:9-10a). This is the exhortation of Pope Francis gives us for this Lent. Let us ask the Lord who accompanies us on this journey returning to essentiality, to make us seize every opportunity, occasion, moment, possibility to become one with Him. Lent is a favourable time to seek out, and not to avoid, those in need; to reach out, and not to ignore, those who wish to be heard and to have a good word; to visit, and not to abandon, those who suffer from loneliness. Let us put into practice the call to do good to all, taking time to love the least and most defenseless, the abandoned and the despised, those who are discriminated against and the marginalised (Message of Pope Francis for Lent 2022).

Mary "ponders all these things in her heart" and thus becomes a teacher of prayer, discernment and action. Let us ask her to guide us in all our efforts, for consolation when we feel depressed, for strength to pray and fast and to inspire us with the "great hope" of eternal life.

Renato Valera, President ADMA Valdocco.

Alejandro Guevara, Spiritual Animator, ADMA Valdocco.