“Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious
and merciful...” (Jl 2:13).
With this exhortation taken
from the book of the prophet Joel, the Church begins her Lenten pilgrimage, the
acceptable time for returning: for returning to God from whom we have turned
away. This, in fact, is the meaning of the penitential journey which starts
today, Ash Wednesday: to return to the Father's house, bearing in our hearts
the confession of our own guilt. The psalmist invites us to say over and over: “Have
mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your
abundant mercy blot out my transgressions” (Ps 50 [51]:1). With these
sentiments, each of us sets out on the Lenten path, in the conviction that God
the Father, who “sees in secret” (Mt 6: 4, 6, 18), goes out to meet the
repentant sinner as he returns. As in the parable of the prodigal son, he
embraces him and lets him understand that, by returning home, he has regained
his dignity as a son: “he was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is
found” (Lk 15: 24).
-Saint John Paul II, Ash Wednesday 1999
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