Lent is a time for re-orienting and refocussing our lives on the Paschal Mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection, which we prepare to celebrate at the culmination of this season. We do this through our penitential practices which, through our “giving something up for Lent”, remind us of how easily our lives can become unbalanced, giving too much attention, for example, to eating or watching television or whatever it may be. As we recognise our failings, the Church in our Lenten readings points us towards the solution: we must return to the Lord, who alone can save us (Hosea 14:4), and who only asks that we turn to him, and he will heal our disloyalty (Hosea 14:5). At the same time, today’s Gospel reading presents us with that principle which will give balance to our lives, and by which we are to return to the Lord, namely love. If it is love of God and of neighbour which motivates our actions, then we will be living in accordance with God’s will. In this way, too, we draw near to the Paschal Mystery, for it is here above all that we see, in Christ, a human life lived out in perfect love (for, as Jesus reminded his disciples at the Last Supper, ‘greater love has no man that this, that he should die for his friends,’ John 15:13) .
So, then, let us allow ourselves this Lent to be drawn more profoundly into the great mysteries of Holy Week and Easter, both by recalling our need for the salvation won by them, and also by allowing our lives to be conformed more closely, through God’s saving grace, to the model of love presented to us in them.
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