Author: Darren Carden

LENT 2024

Lent is a 40 day season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at sundown on Holy
Thursday. It's a period of preparation to celebrate the Lord's Resurrection at Easter. During Lent, we seek the Lord in prayer by reading Sacred Scripture; we serve by giving alms; and we practice self-control through fasting. We are called not only to abstain from luxuries during Lent, but to a true inner
conversion of heart as we seek to follow Christ's will more faithfully. We recall the waters of baptism in which we were
also baptised into Christ's death, died to sin and evil, and
began new life in Christ.
Many know of the tradition of abstaining from meat on Fridays during Lent, but we are also called to practice self-discipline and fast in other ways throughout the season. Contemplate the meaning and origins of the Lenten fasting tradition in this reflection. In addition, the giving of alms is one way to share God's gifts—not only through the distribution of money, but through the sharing of our time and talents. As St. John Chrysostom reminds us: "Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 2446).
In Lent, the baptised are called to renew their baptismal
commitment as others prepare to be baptised through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, a period of learning and
discernment for individuals who have declared their desire to become Catholics.

Ash Wednesday 14th February 2024
St Mary’s 10.00am Mass and 7.00pm Mass
During the weeks of Lent
Tuesdays: Rosary 09:30am, St. Patrick’s
Wednesdays: Exposition 09:30am, St. Mary’s 7.00pm Mass St Mary’s with confessions after Mass till 8pm
RCIA Programme 7.30pm to 8.30pm, St Mary’s. Please support the people on the RCIA Programme as they approach their
reception into the Catholic faith
Thursdays: Exposition 11.00am till 12noon, St. Mary’s
Fridays: Divine Mercy Chaplet 09.45am, St. Patrick’s
Lectio Divina 2.00pm, St. Mary’s Presbytery.
Stations of the cross 3.00pm alternate weeks between St. Mary’s and
St. Patrick’s, first week at St. Mary’s
Saturdays: exposition 10.30am till 11.00am, St. Mary’s . Confessions available
Confessions 5.15pm till 5.45pm, St. Patrick’s
Confessions also by appointment

In his message for Lent 2024, Pope Francis invites the faithful to "pause" for prayer and to assist our brothers and sisters in need, in order to change our own lives and the lives of our communities.
"When our God reveals Himself, His message is always one of
freedom," Pope Francis says in the opening of his Message to the faithful for Lent 2024.
Recalling the Exodus of the Hebrew people from Egypt, the Holy Father explains that our journey through the desert can be a season of grace - not an abstract journey, but a concrete path that involves seeing the world as it is and hearing the cries of our oppressed brothers and sisters.
The Pope insists on the need to counter a "globalisation of
indifference." "Our Lenten journey will be concrete if… we realise that even today we remain under the rule of Pharoah. A rule that makes us weary and indifferent. A model of growth that divides us and robs us of our future."
At the same time, Pope Francis reminded us that it is God who takes the initiative. Too often, he said, there remains within us "an inexplicable longing for slavery," a desire to cling to idols that paralyse us, as Israel was paralysed in the desert.
Lent, however, is a "season of grace, a time of conversion," where the desert can become "a place where our freedom can mature in a personal decision not to fall back into slavery," where "we find new criteria of justice and a community with which we can press forward on a road not yet taken."
He adds that the Lenten journey involves a struggle. It is a time for
action, the Pope says, but also a time "to pause" - to pause in prayer and to pause "in the presence of a wounded brother or sister."
"Love of God and love of neighbour are one love," Pope Francis
continues, explaining that "the contemplative dimension" of Lent can help us "release new energies," to be "more sensitive to one another: in the place of threats and enemies, we discover companions and fellow
travellers."
Pope Francis concludes his Lenten message on a hopeful note: "To the extent that this Lent becomes a time of conversion, an anxious humanity will notice a burst of creativity, a flash of new hope."
Calling on the faithful to "be ready to take risks," he invites them "to find the courage to see our world, not as in its death throes, but in a
process of giving birth; not at the end, but at the beginning of a great new chapter of history."
"Faith and charity," he says, "take hope, this small child, by the hand. They teach her to walk, and at the same time, she leads them forward."