This is a challenge for Christian life, not only during Lent but in all circumstances in this world in which we must overcome evil. “Whoever is in Christ is a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Prayer, fasting, and works of mercy are not pietism, spiritual athleticism, or philanthropy. They are the expressions of a new way of existing, the belonging-to-Christ that begins in baptism and becomes vital in our own moments of history in the measure that we live as instruments of Christ’s transforming love in our world.
We are called to “make room” for Him to live in us and manifest His glory through us within our own aspirations, concerns and struggles, with our talents and gifts and also through our poverty, pain, and powerlessness. Every moment of our lives is a gift from the Father to us as we grow in the Spirit as adopted sons and daughters in Jesus Christ. And not only a gift to us, but also - through us - to the world.
These days provide for us a pedagogy of offering everything, so as to remember that the value of our actions consists in Christ consecrating the world through us as we recognize that His glory is the meaning of everything, the meaning of our days, the meaning of all human history. We remember too that this extends beyond all imaginable hopes of this life, to the extremities of our apparent insignificance, failure, “uselessness,” and suffering… for His “power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
