Lent - Cuaresma
From Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday
40 days (if you exclude the Sundays)
Our Holy Father gives us a Lenten message each year. Included also in this section are our Papas fab catecheses and homilies on Ash Wednesday, plus their words at the Sunday Angelus.
On the 1st Sunday of Lent 1979 Pope St John Paul II gave us his first encyclical - Redemptor Hominis, the Redeemer of Man. He also gave 4 Lenten catecheses on prayer, fasting, almsgiving & solidarity.
Catechesis with St John Paul II on Prayer
"Prayer is the way of the Verb who embraces everything. The way of the eternal Verb who traverses the depth of so many hearts; who leads back to the Father all that which in Him has its origin. Prayer is the sacrifice of our lips (cf Heb 13, 15). It is, as St Ignatius of Antioch writes, "Living water that murmurs within us and says: come to the Father."
Catechesis with Benedict XVI on the Temptations of Jesus
".. In this time of Lent, we renew our commitment on the pathway of conversion, so as to overcome the tendency to close in on ourselves and to make, instead, space for God, looking with his eyes at daily reality. The alternative between the closing in of our egoism and the opening to the love of God and others, we could say corresponds to the alternatives of the temptations of Jesus: the alternative, that is, between human power and love of the Cross, between a redemption viewed solely on material well-being and a redemption as the work of God, to whom we give the primacy in existence."
3 2us by Fr Francis Selman on Lent & on the Transfiguration
Evangelium by Fr Andrew Pinsent on Penance
Messages by Pope Francis:
Lent 2020 - "We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God"
Lent 2019 - "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God"
Lent 2018 - "Because of the increase of iniquity, the love of many will grow cold"
Lent 2017 - “The Word is a gift. Other persons are a gift”
Lent 2016 - “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.” The works of mercy on the Jubilee pathway
Lent 2015 - "Strengthen your hearts"
Lent 2014 - "He became poor, so as to enrich us by his poverty"
Messages by Papa Benedict XVI:
Lent 2012 - "Let us be concerned for each other, to stir a response in love and good works"
Lent 2011 - “You were buried with him in Baptism, in which you were also raised with him.”
Lent 2010 - “The justice of God has been manifested through faith in Jesus Christ”
Lent 2009 - "He fasted for forty days and forty nights, after which He was very hungry"
Lent 2008 - “Christ made Himself poor for you”
Messages by Pope Saint John Paul II:
Lent 2005 - "Loving the Lord.. means life to you, and length of days"
Lent 2004 - “Anyone who welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me”
Lent 2003 - "There is more happiness in giving than in receiving"
Lent 2002 - “Freely you have received, freely give”
Lent 2001 - "Love is not resentful"
Lent in the Jubilee 2000 - "I am with you always, to the end of time"
Lent 1999 - The Lord will prepare a banquet for all peoples
Lent 1998 - Come, 0 blessed of my Father, for I was poor, marginalized and you welcomed me!
Lent 1997 - "Come, O blessed of my Father, for I was homeless and you took me in"
Lent 1996 - "Give them something to eat"
Lent 1995 - "The Spirit of the Lord... has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim... recovery of sight to the blind."
Lent 1994 - "The family is at the service of charity, charity is at the service of the family"
Lent 1992 - "Called to share the table of creation"
Lent 1991 - “As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me”
Lent 1990 - “I was a stranger and you welcomed me… I was a stranger and you did not welcome me”
Lent 1989 - “Give us this day our daily bread”
Lent 1988 - “Is not this the fast that I choose… to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house?”
Lent 1987 - “He has filled the hungry with good things, and has sent the rich away empty”
Lent 1986 - “Through love be servants of one another”
1985 - “Let all that you do be done in love… The grace of the Lord Jesus will be with you"
1984 - “When the Son of man comes in his glory…, he will say… ‘Come O blessed of my Father… for I was hungry and you gave me food…’”
1983 - “And all who believed where together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need”
1982 - “Who is my neighbour?”
1981 - “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple”
1980 - “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”
1979 - “What has become of Lent?”
Messages by Blessed Pope Paul VI:
Lent 1978 - “Those who believed shared all things in common”
Lent 1977 - the “acceptable time” for us to prepare to celebrate worthily the Paschal Mystery
Lent 1976 - “We beg once again not to neglect the grace of God”
Lent 1975 - “The poor you always have with you”
Lent 1974 - A “break” which is demanded by the spirit of Lent
Lent 1973 - “This, rather, is the fasting that I wish: … sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless; clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own”