The Light is On for You & Catholic Reading Wednesday

Do you need a new start?  The Light is On for You!

Go to confession TONIGHT, or any Wednesday this Lent from 6:30-8:00 pm in our own church,

or any parish or chapel in the Boston Diocese.

All people are welcome to come to the Heavenly Feast, so start with a good confession to our Lord.

An introduction on how to make a good confession can be found here.  

What to do in Lent? How can we make this a holy season, growing spiritually and in our relationship with our Lord? Here's are five quick thoughts:

1. Sacrifice something - give it up. Not for yourself (aka. dieting), but as an offering to the Lord. Put this thing out of your life for a time, and allow God to fill that void with His grace.
   
2. Give alms - give from your need, not just your excess. Give money saved by making sacrifices to the poor, lonely, forgotten, and mistreated.  Unite yourself to those who suffer, and give with a sincere and generous heart.
   
3. Give time - start a habit of caring for someone that God has put in your life. This may mean beginning a commitment to volunteer, visiting a neighbor in need, or giving more dedicated time to your family.
   
4. Go to Confession - recognize your sins, faults, failings, and struggles. Confess them to the Lord sincerely, and ask for His help. God is faithful! Then go out and make amends with those whom you have hurt. Generously forgive those who have hurt you. Offer others the same new beginning which Christ has offered to each of us.
   
5. Make a habit of Prayer - start spending time with God, habitually. For some this means going to Daily Mass. For others, it means praying the Rosary, the Daily Readings, or other set devotions. For others this means cracking open the Scriptures. For others it means sitting quietly and listening to God. Whatever way you pray, just do it.

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With many thanks to our wonderful and insightful curator, Karen Celano, you can delve into a faith-related news article each Wednesday! Karen writes:

This week marks the twentieth anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide, in which hundreds of thousands of ethnic minority Tutsis were slaughtered by the majority Hutus. Last month, Pieter Hugo went to Rwanda to photograph Tutsi survivors with the Hutu perpetrators of crimes against their families. In each photograph, the Tutsi survivor has accepted the request for forgiveness offered by the Hutu perpetrators.

The photographs are an amazing testimony to the power of forgiveness, and of the human need both to forgive and to ask for forgiveness. Hugo's project was sponsored by the Association Modeste et Innocent, part of Pax Christi International, a Catholic organization dedicated to cultivating world peace. The National Catholic Register reflects on the Church's role in the life of Rwandans, the majority of whom faithfully practice their religion and who see religion as crucial to their nation's healing. As one survivor put it, "We forgive because we know God also forgives."

During Lent we prepare ourselves for the great reconciling act of Christ on the Cross. Because of this, the Church urges us to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation during Lent, as Pope Francis did at St. Peter's Basilica. But Christ tells us that it is not enough to reconcile ourselves to God; we must also reconcile ourselves to our neighbor (Matthew 5:23-24).

Reconciliation entails recognizing the humanity of those who are different from us, as Cardinal O'Malley urged us to do at his Mass on the U.S.-Mexico Border on April 1. It means seeing that God's grace transcends human sinfulness, as Argentinian Archbishop Carlos Nanez reminds us when he defended the decision to baptize a child who is being raised by a same-sex couple. And it is built on the faith that unity in Christ is greater than any human division.

Let us pray for the survivors of genocide in Rwanda, as Pope Francis did, and let us also ask for the grace to recognize our own need to seek the forgiveness of others, and to grant forgiveness when we are asked.