Vous êtes déjà ressuscités ! Méditations pour le temps de Carême

The text
Lent has never had “good press”, including among Catholics themselves. Indeed, this period appears to many as a sad time when one must deprive oneself and where penitential episodes follow one another. It is therefore understandable that the expression “to have a Lenten face” has become popular. However, this period could be experienced differently if we took the key to love. At Easter, Christ will give his life out of love for Humanity, thus opening the doors to eternal life. Faced with this unconditional love of God for man, man is called in turn to show him his unconditional love. Lent can then be seen as a time when man gives back first place to God and His Word.
By fasting, man shows following Christ that he does not only eat bread but that he can nourish himself with the Word of God. By praying more intensively, Christ's disciples reestablish a bond that may have become loose over the months. By showing compassion through what the Pope calls works of charity, they live the Gospel in a concrete way, rediscovering the bond of fraternity that unites all men. During this period, the effort of man and the Grace of God will unite in a concrete way, like the two wings of a bird that flies towards its Creator, inviting each of us to raise our eyes toward the sky.
The author
Priest and psychologist, Benedictine oblate, currently directs, at the request of Mgr Wintzer, Archbishop of Poitiers, a meditation center in the heart of the Benedictine Sainte-Croix abbey (86). Attentive to new spiritual expectations, he addresses himself in contemporary language and without ready-made formula, to all those who have an inner quest, wishing to respond to it by following Jesus Christ.