As we progress through the season of Lent, the Gospels and the Church present to us some special images and emphases as we seek to draw closer to Jesus. The Gospel of the first Sunday of Lent repeated for us the theme of Jesus’s mission: Repent and believe in the Gospel. That summarizes much of what should be our Lenten practice and penance.

Another prominent focus of Lent is that of Jesus carrying His cross. All through the year we are brought in touch with this scene when we say the Sorrowful Mysteries of the rosary. The Fourth Sorrowful Mystery is precisely the carrying of the cross and it immediately precedes the Fifth Sorrowful Mystery, the Crucifixion.

Prominent and perennially popular during Lent are the Stations of the Cross. There, in 14 episodes or stations, we accompany Jesus from Pilate’s condemnation of Him to His burial after His death on the cross. From the second to the ninth Stations, we specifically walk with Jesus as He bears the cross, focusing on the spiritual traditions of His three falls, His meeting with Mary, and the courage and piety of Veronica. So too, we recall the Gospel descriptions of Jesus meeting the women of Jerusalem and the impressment of
Simon to help carry the cross.

These devotions have long helped the faithful to personalize the suffering Jesus. Through them, we are drawn to walk next to Jesus and to feel with Him the pain, the loneliness and the spiritual sorrow of His Via Crucis, His Sorrowful Way.

As we do so, we recall the Lord’s words to His disciples, “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me” (Mt. 10:38). In short, in order to rise with Jesus, we must first suffer with Him.

Taken together, these descriptions help us to believe and to repent as Jesus called His followers to do. We believe more deeply because we have the true recounting of the brutality that Jesus endured in the body. It was real and true, as was His death on the cross. There was pain. There was blood. There was mockery and abandonment.

Our faith is heightened, not diminished, by these accounts.  “For God so loved the world that he gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  (Jn 3:16).  We believe that Jesus came precisely to fulfill the Father’s will by suffering and dying for our sins.  The Son of God’s willingness to become human and suffer for us gives us hope.

The carrying of the cross also gives us motivation for repentance. Jesus carried His cross not just for some generic sense of the sin of the world. Each of us must also admit, He suffered for my sins. For that reason, each of us must deepen our repentance. We must renounce our sins, reform our hearts and express our repentance to God.

That repentance and conversion leads us to the sacrament of confession. Once more I ask, please make a good confession during Lent. Especially if you have been away from confession for a long time, or if you have long borne a deep wound of sin, now is the time to seek the forgiveness of the same Lord who carried His cross for us. Don’t forget our Be Reconciled Day is coming on March 20, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. in our parish churches which will be dedicated to hearing confessions that day. Check your bulletin for details or visit bereconciled.rockforddiocese.org

Also, don’t forget. In this Eucharistic Revival Year, come to the Mass of the Lord’s Supper in your parish on Holy Thursday evening. That Mass recalls the very institution of the Mass, the reality of the True Presence of Jesus’s body and blood in the Eucharist and the union of the Eucharist to the Lord’s sacrifice of Himself on the cross on Good Friday.

Lent truly helps us to repent and to believe in the Gospel.