Welcome to the 3rd Sunday of Lent! As I have pointed out in my reflection of last week, during the first two Sundays of Lent every year we have the same themes. The gospel text of the 1stSunday of Lent is always about the temptations of Jesus – from the three synoptic Gospels according to the three year cycle. Similarly, the 2nd Sunday of Lent invites us to reflect on the story of Transfiguration. The remaining three Sundays before the Palm Sunday in Cycle A are special. The gospel passages are taken from the Gospel of John and they develop three central themes of our experience of Jesus that are particularly important for the catechumens – those adults who are preparing to be baptised during Easter:

Welcome to 2nd Sunday of Lent! The gospel reading of Ash Wednesday, proposed a program for the spiritual journey of the season of Lent: fasting, prayer and almsgiving. These three 'strategies' are relevant not only for the season of Lent, but throughout our Christian life. The season of Lent is but an intense way of living out our Christian life. Therefore fasting, prayer and almsgiving are ways to go beyond ourselves, extend our hearts to God, and to stretch out our hands to our neighbors. These two dimensions of our Christian life journey are like going up the mountain and coming down it.

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Season of Lent. It is a season of penance, prayer and fasting which is our preparation for the Easter celebration of Jesus' resurrection. Excluding Sundays it is a season of forty days, in imitation of Jesus spending forty days in the desert. Jesus fasted in the desert, and overcame the devil's temptations. By observing the forty days of lent, the individual Christian imitates Jesus' withdrawal into the wilderness for forty days and at the same time contemplates on the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is an invitation to look into our hearts and make the ancient prayer our own: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."