Every day is an opportunity to grow in our relationship with God, but Lent in particular gives us a designated time to reflect more deeply and with less distractions on our relationship with him. As many of us know, Lent is a time that invites us to mature in that relationship with the God who created us through prayer, fasting and almsgiving. It is a designated period in the liturgical calendar that invites us to metanoia to return to God again, repenting of all our evils and transforming our hearts and minds to resemble God more and more each day.

We may be tempted to see this as just another predictable part of the routine within the Catholic liturgical calendar, but we cannot allow ourselves to be fooled by that lie that prevents us from truly paying attention to our call to be holy. Repentance and ongoing conversion are necessary to grow in holiness. We know that we are not perfect and therefore we have to try to be united every day with the one who is perfection itself, with the supreme God. Even though we live in difficult times full of uncertainty about the pandemic, we can be certain about one thing–that God awaits us with open arms to live a Lent like no other. It is an opportunity we cannot let go unnoticed.

God calls us again this year to give the best of ourselves this Lent. He calls us to live in holiness remembering the events of more than 2000 years ago, when the history of humanity changed by seeing the invisible God take human form and do the most extraordinary act of love of all time–laying down his life on the tree for the salvation of his beloved children. Today more than ever we must be aware of this great love that God has for each of us by living, once again, a holy Lent. Things may look a little different in our parishes and our families this year because of everything we have gone through in the last year, but God walks by our side.

Let us open our hearts as we have never done before and allow God to accompany us in these 40 days just as he did with the Israelites in past times. Let us allow God to touch the deepest wounds of our being, let us open the doors of our hearts so that the rays of light may intimately enter and transform us into what God has dreamed for each one of us–the best version of ourselves, the people that we ourselves did not know we could become. Let us allow God to break us like clay in the hands of the potter so that he can make us like new vessels. He, and only he, will make it possible for us to live this Lent like no other, or as the Scriptures tell us, “Behold, I make all things new.” (Rev. 21:5)

Read the Spanish version here.