Riccardi

Commentary on the Word of Life: Not what I want, but what you want. (Mk 14:36) Jesus was in the garden of olives, in a place called Gethsemane. The long-awaited hour hadarrived. It was the turning point of his life. He threw himself on the ground and appealed to God, with confident tenderness calling him ‘Father’. He asked to be spared from ‘drinking the cup’, words that referred to his passion and death. Jesus prayed that that hour might pass him by… But in the end he submitted completely to the Father’s will: Not what I want, but what you want Jesus knew his passion was no chance event, nor simply a decision by human beings, but God’s plan. He was to be tried and rejected by human beings, but the ‘cup’ came from God’s hands. Jesus teaches us that the Father has his plan of love for each one of us and that he loves us personally. He teaches us that if we believe in the Father’s love and respond

From Chiara’s diary But what meaning does Lent have in our Christian life? It reminds us, among other things, that life is a struggle, a race. Saint Catherine used to say: “Run, run because time is short.” Her “run” echoed that of the Apostle: “Do you not realize that, though all the runners in the stadium take part in the race, only one of them gets the prize? Therefore run like that in order to win. Those who participate in the race willingly undergo every kind of sacrifice in order to win a wreath that will wither away, whereas ours will never wither.” There then we have the sacrifices. Call them what you want: they are those small acts against our will, our instincts, against our innate egoism that Lent proposes to draw us closer to Jesus Christ.