Pastor’s Viewpoint - March 28, 2023

Lent is a season of joy. Anything we do during Lent, such as fasting, giving to charity, or spending more time in prayer, is meant to bring-us closer to God, and therefore bring us joy. Sometimes, we can think that we do these things to make ourselves better.

We can’t make ourselves holy — that’s God’s work. God has reconciled us to himself through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

As St Paul would say: “God has made the sinless one into sin, so that we might become the goodness of God”! Our part is to open ourselves to the gift of God’s grace — and so we enter the ‘discipline” of Lent.

The words ‘discipline’ and ‘disciple’ come from the Latin for “learning, being a student”. So, during Lent, we are trying to “learn” the presence of God. Let’s hope that we can become good students!

Fr Greg Kennedy,
St Joseph’s Catholic Church