Lenten Fasting & Abstinence*:

FASTING: ABSTINENCE:

• Ash Wednesday & Every Friday during Lent and Good Friday
• Ages 18-59 Ages 14+
• For reasons of ill health or if you are above the age of 59, or if you are pregnant, you are exempt. For more detailed information, go to usccb.org/Lenten rule

Next Wednesday—is Ash Wednesday—and we enter into the Lenten Season. But this Sunday we hear in the Matthean Gospel a new teaching of the Lord, one meant to move us from the insulating safety and security of what we know and are comfortable with, i.e., our attachments to like-minded peoples, cultures and ways, and overcome the natural indifference to others by following God’s Will.

So let me paraphrase Mark Twain who once said, “The New Testament is the book we want others to read,” with an open mind we enter into Lent in which we are to come to the hope that we shall ready ourselves for the reign of God to enter our lived earthly lives, and not only understand but take on God’s plan for the whole of humanity: the acceptance of others as God sees them, and welcome them as sisters and brothers.

The Old Testament had a legal code which was meant to prevent insults to one’s honor becoming an all-out bloody, tribal battle. In today’s Matthean Gospel, Jesus gives us a list of “insults” that should not become something bigger by opening ourselves up to God’s perspective of others. For example, today’s gospel reading deals with the issue of retaliation for being insulted. Rather than retaliate for the evil that is done to us, Christ calls us to replace the actions of Love vs. Hate, or attachment vs. indifference, with an understanding of treating the “outsider” as a member of our “group” or “culture.”

Many a Biblical scholar might call us to consider the very words of Christ in the Our Father, “…And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…” so that we shall treat all others, even those we dislike or disagree with, as we ourselves wish to be treated.

Let us pray that by the powerful words of Christ’s own prayer, the Our Father, and by the grace of God instilled in us through His Word made Flesh, His teachings, and the Sacraments, which He Himself instituted and hands on to us through the Church, that our Lenten Season be lived well and may enable us to bear the fruit necessary to replace the “outsider” with a perspective of God, one family in faith, one humanity united in hope. A Blessed Lent to all.

Lenten News
From a letter dated 6 February 2023 from Archbishop Blair: “With regard to another matter, this year, St. Patrick’s Day falls on a Friday in Lent. Anticipating requests received in the past, I formally dispense those for whom this is an especially joyful celebration from the Lenten obligation to abstain from meat on that day. Inasmuch as fasting is a spiritual good, meant, in the words of the Catechism, “to help us acquire mastery over our instincts and freedom of heart,” I encourage them to choose another day during that week on which to transfer the Lenten abstinence. Sincerely yours in Christ, +Leonard P. Blair, Archbishop of Hartford.