LENT 2025: Return To The Lord With Your Whole Heart (Joel 12:2)

Years ago, in my search to understand what this holy season of Lent means,  I characterized it as a “desert experience” where for forty days, we follow our Master, Jesus Christ, through the desert. The Gospel for the First Sunday of Lent often describes the temptations of Jesus Christ. One important piece of that narrative is the fact that Jesus was led into the desert by the Holy Spirit. This is not a minute detail. It is a crucial point. Life often seems like one long dreary desert experience where not only temptations beset us but tempests assail us. We are invited over the next forty days to enter into the desert with the Holy Spirit. 

The readings for Ash Wednesday from the prophet Joel set the tone for this season. We often hear John the Baptist's proclamation: Repent during Advent. It is also an appropriate message for Lent. After all, there is an inner connection between Advent and Lent. The reading calls for three things. First, it tells us what Lent should be namely a time to return to the Lord. It is a time of the Exodus to move from our slavery and return home. In the words of Pope Francis, it is a time of conversion. One of the best parables that captures this is the parable of the Prodigal son expressed in the refrain: Yes, I shall arise and return to my Father. It is time to return to the Church. We have gone astray. We have missed our way. It is not a return to our old ways. It is not going backwards like the Israelites yearned for the flesh pots in Egypt. It is a return to the Lord. Let us turn again to the Lord. 

Why should we return to the Lord? The simple answer is yes because He is Lord but even more so like the Prophet reminds us: “God our Father is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, rich in kindness, relenting in punishment.” Lent is a time to return to grace and to mercy. God is a God of mercy and compassion who looks with pity upon us and so we dare call Him Father, tis thy child returning to thee, to paraphrase the lyrics of that beautiful hymn. 

How should we return? Simply, with our whole heart. Lent is about our heart. Return to the Lord with you while heart, exhorts the prophet in today's first reading. Not with the cosmetic showmanship we are tempted to indulge in. Whether with prayer, almsgiving and fasting. Return to the Lord with your whole heart through prayer, fast and almsgiving. Let the heart be broken and not garments torn. Return to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This season of Lent could be a good moment to meditate on the brilliant document by Pope Francis Dilexit Nos. In its opening chapter, the Holy Father calls for all of us to rediscover the importance of the heart.

Over the next 40 days of Lent, may we be led by the Holy Spirit through the desert of our life to return to our God who abounds in mercy and love. In his 2025 Lenten message, entitled: “Let us journey together in Hope,” Pope Francis issues a call to conversion that comes from the realization that all of us are pilgrims in this life; each of us is invited to stop and ask how our lives reflect this fact. Am I really on a journey, or am I standing still, not moving, either immobilized by fear and hopelessness or reluctant to move out of my comfort zone? Am I seeking ways to leave behind the occasion of sin and situations that degrade my dignity?”

On Ash Wednesday when we seek a new start, we are encouraged to ask ourselves: Where are we on this pilgrimage? We are invited to be prodigal sons and daughters and return to the Lord in and with our whole hearts. It is not just about giving up stuff like the season has now become known for? It is about being and not just doing. What is in your heart? What is your heart full of?

The Bishops of the United States of America in their mission directive for 2025 identify the urgent task of evangelizing the religiously unaffiliated commonly known as the nones and the religiously disaffiliated. We must seek to identify where we are on this pilgrimage. Many have left the Church and even among those who are present, some are physically present but actually absent. This Lent we must return to the Lord with our whole heart but not just as individuals. As Pope Francis says, we must journey together. Christians are called to walk at the side of others, and never as lone travellers. The Holy Spirit impels us not to remain self-absorbed but to leave ourselves behind and keep walking towards God and our brothers and sisters. It means walking side by side without shoving or stepping on others without envy or hypocrisy, without letting anyone be left behind or excluded. Let us all walk in the same direction, leading towards the same goal, attentive to one another in love and patience. (To be continued)