Let’s pray and fast and give

THE Roman Catholic Church of the Ascension was jam-packed to capacity last Wednesday evening as the Solemn Ash Wednesday Mass was said along with the Imposition of Ashes. The celebrant and homilist was Monsignor Terrence Montrose, parish priest of the faith community in New Amsterdam. The service began promptly at 06:00 p.m and the later than usual Mass time was timely indeed as the idea was to allow more persons who came off at work at 05:00 p.m to attend the evening Mass.

In his first homily for the Lenten season this year, Monsignor Montrose said, “For the next six weeks, we will be looking at our relationship with God and asking ourselves the question – How do we live our faith?-…Each of us has taken an account of our lives, our lives of faith. You are invited during this time to fast, to pray and to make sacrifices. Our fasting is not just to lose weight, is not just for a time; our fasting is to bring us into the presence of God. Our fasting must go together with our faith. You are invited to do some extra exercises especially during this time.”

He invited parishioners and those present to attend daily Mass and say extra prayers. He said, “Do some extra exercises so that you may prepare yourself well for the celebration of Easter. You are encouraged when you fast, to save the money from your fasting and give it to the poor. As a family, you may calculate how much you will save if you do some fasting. You take that money and you give it to the poor. The parish has just begun a feeding programme at Edinburgh Primary school —you can be part of that. Your fasting must be together with your praying and giving away what you have saved.

If you are young you can fast from morning to night. Many of us cannot do that (due to health reasons). Make your fast reasonable, sensible, and sacrificial. You are invited to make up your own schedule of fasting and praying. There are two days in the life of the Church that fasting is compulsory—today and Good Friday. Many people decide that they want to give up things—less food, no sweet, no gambling, no alcohol, some people decide that they will give that up. But it’s also important that you do something. Don’t just give up something but do something. There are many positive things that you can do at this time during Lent. All of you are invited to make this time a time of great preparation—a time of sacrifice. For forty days and forty nights He spent in the desert eating hardly anything. We are invited to do that, during these forty days and forty nights to really fast and make sacrifices so that at Easter time we may welcome the Lord in goodness and gladness. Today, we begin walking with the Lord.

Some of you will decide that during this time of Lent, “I will get up a little earlier; I will say some extra prayers; I will come to church; I will gather in the evening with my neighbours and say the rosary”—all those things are possible. All of you are invited to be a part of the Stations of the Cross.

We will listen to the readings carefully during this time and over and over we will hear how God loves us and because of His love for us, He sent His only Son to die for us. This time of Lent leading up to Easter is more important than Christmas. This is the time the Church always celebrated—Christmas came much later as an addition—but the time of Lent and the time of Easter is very important in the life of the Church. It is the most dramatic time when our readings and all that we do bring us to the presence of God. You are invited to listen, to see, to hear how God loves us.

Our readings today remind us to rend your hearts and not your garments. Very often that is misinterpreted when people say, “Render your hearts and not your garments”. It’s not ‘render’—it’s not ‘give’, it’s to tear your heart—to tear your heart in sorrow for our sins—to implore God to forgive us and to help us be Sons and Daughters of His. Again and again we implore the Lord to save us. We know how our hearts are geared to sin. We ask Him at this time to help us to shed those things, to be able to stand before Him with purity of heart.

We begin tonight and we continue for the next forty days and forty nights asking God, imploring God to forgive us our sins, to wash us and make us clean and help us receive that redemption.

We will scatter ashes on ourselves as a sign of our nothingness, as a sign of our repentance—that is why we use the ashes. Ashes are nothing—dust; we put it on ourselves as a sign of our own nothingness, of our own sinfulness and as a need for God’s love.”

After the homily, the ashes were blessed and then imposed on the foreheads of the faithful.

It is hoped that the faithful Catholics in Guyana would use this time of fasting, praying and confession—Lent—to seek that comforting place near to our Lord even though we may have to go through the ‘discomforts’ of the various disciplines of Lent. Our rewards at Easter will be plentiful.
LEON SUSERAN

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