MULTITUDES of people flocked our Catholic Churches again last Ash Wednesday to observe the beginning of Lent, a forty-day period of prayer, fasting and almsgiving in preparation for Holy Week and Easter. Despite the fact that some came on this day only “to get ash” on their foreheads, still we could see people manifesting their need for God and their desire for change their lives.
We do need to respond to the inner voice in our hearts that urges us to seek God, especially in these troubled times when we hear so much crimes going on in our society and when our Church is beset by grandiose moral and economic problems.
We cannot let evil triumph over us, our faith, and our Church. We must resist the temptation to leave our faith, to succumb to fear and hopelessness, and to dwell only on mundane matters. God needs us to trust him and to continue building his Kingdom on earth with the Gospel of love, justice, peace, and compassion.
Even if Vatican, the seat of Catholicism, is destroyed, our faith as Catholics will never die. History has proven this to be true. Many Catholics in the past shed blood and sacrificed their lives to defend their Church and their faith; and their martyrdom did not go in vain. It will be the same for us in the present time.
So what should we do when we feel that our Catholic faith is being oppressed and our Church is being tried worldwide? The Gospel this First Sunday of Lent can give us an answer. We must be like Jesus: fearless in faith, resistant to Satan’s deceits, unwilling to let the Enemy win over us.
In this age of secularism, with the words of Jesus we declare, “One does not not live on bread alone.” When we witness people solely preoccupied with hunger for material goods, pleasures, and powers of this world, we must not be afraid to tell them, “It is written: You shall worship the Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve.” When fears, anxieties, and despair overtake us, we say to ourselves, “He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you.”
Lent, therefore, is a time to strengthen our faith in God.
For us, Catholic faithful, Lent is the opportune time to save our Church from any harm and destruction. We must remember that the Church is more than the hierarchy and more than the priests. It’s all of us who love our Catholic faith to death because we have found it to be most life-giving, fulfilling, and true.
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Reverend Rodel G. Balagtas attended St. John Seminary in Camarillo, California and earned his Doctor of Ministry in Preaching from Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, Missouri. For twenty years, he has been in the parish ministry of large multi-cultural communities. Since 2002, he has been the pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Los Angeles. Please email Fr. Rodel at [email protected].
