Dear Brothers and Sisters, Christ’s faithful, the Laity, Religious, and Clergy of the Archdiocese,
As Lent commences, I write with words of challenge and encouragement for all of us to take to heart.
To make a good Lent, the best approach to these 40 days would be to see them as our last Lent, and this our final Easter before we come to the eternal Paschal Feast to which our faith looks forward, the entire hope and promise of our Christian profession.
The first prayer of Ash Wednesday’s Mass employs stirring and striking military terms: “campaign,” “battle,” “weapons.”
We are now on a campaign of Christian service; we are to battle against spiritual evils, arming ourselves with the weapons of self-restraint, among others “with holy fasting.”
The ashes invite us to conquer evil and do good, to stand strong and free against that engulfing modern tide of an illusory and superficial life-style bound down by moral mediocrity.
Each year the Gospel of the First Sunday of Lent places before us, as a warning, the seductive assault which Satan made even upon our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Satan has nothing to lose because already he is the loser, and as Scripture tells us, he goes about the world in great rage, knowing that he has but a short time. (Apoc 12:12).
His lies and deceits were exposed by our Lord as we hear in the gospel dialogue, but they are still willingly listened to and believed in our own day, and we live with the terrible consequences.
Part of our problem in society as well as within the Church is that we’ve put aside, perhaps as a bit of an embarrassment, that military metaphor of the Christian fight, the fight against the supernatural enemies which surround us. Their leader and crafty strategist is the Devil.
“Be watchful,” says St Peter, “your adversary the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith” (I Peter 5:8-9).
St Paul also warned about the wiles of the Devil: “we are not contending against flesh and blood . . . but against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” The Apostle ends his letter with a rousing challenge to the Christians of Ephesus to get out and fight, with the belt of truth, the shield of faith, and armed with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (6:11-18).
Time was when we Catholics in Australia were never afraid of a stoush for the cause of Christ and His Church, in our local community or in a wider arena. But for the most part, with outstanding exceptions, can we say that we have become blighted with timidity, afraid to be different from the secularist influences around us, even sometimes within our own institutions, or even to differ from Christian brothers and sisters of other persuasions with whom on some issues we must disagree?
And why so frequently the sounds of silence in the face of the smart diatribes against Christianity, and especially Catholicism, from opponents who are more clever than we are in working the popular media? Is Satan demanding to have us, and sift us like wheat, as he did St Peter? Should we not swiftly turn to the Lord, that our faith may not fail, and gain from Him the strength to strengthen others? (St Luke 22:31-2).
Your bishops are quite properly expected to make a public stand and to exercise what influence they can, for instance, in the face of demands to change the definition of marriage, of pervasive internet pornography and the cultural battles around us in defence of human life. Would that we had the backing of that 26% of Australians who own to being Catholics!
Surely we can only witness with a sense of betrayal those, especially if they are in public life, who profess to be Catholics but who misconstrue or abandon the Church’s witness to Christ’s teaching, or who have never known or understood it, and side instead with the pressure groups whose aim is to sideline Christianity, indeed any religion, from public debate on moral questions.
If more of us who are baptised members of Christ’s body took our membership seriously, used our faith to think with, and overcame our fear to let the Word of God judge us and challenge us, we would begin to know and love God powerfully enough to get into the fight against His adversaries and ours.
We must not be afraid of the comparison of our Christian baptismal call with an enlistment for service and engagement in a combat – a fight towards an ultimate and assured victory which is God’s alone but which in a particular place and moment depends on us. It’s a long, messy and wintry campaign and there’s always another battle ahead.
The Devil is the most subtle of tacticians in getting individuals on his side before they know it, in discrediting the Church, destroying morale and enticing desertion.
Battles have never been won so much by great leaders as by great soldiers, the ordinary people in the trenches who conquer their fear of going ‘over the top.’ Lent puts a focus on our individual and more convinced conversion to the greatest of all causes.
We can put ourselves on the winning side in the smallest of ways: turning from sin and making a good confession in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, resolving to take up prayer as a real weapon for the fight (what a marvellous opportunity we have in visits to the Blessed Sacrament, and extended periods of public Adoration), and challenging our self-centredness by a generous giving of alms to those in need.
The way of the Cross is central to our Lenten journey.
The Cross is the shining sign of the whole army of Christians setting out over these forty days on the march to Easter. We struggle together, not alone, with renewed effort against evil, against Satan and ‘the sin that clings so closely’ that we each bear within (Hebrews 12:1): and all with the happy certitude of sharing in the triumphant victory of the Lamb once slain: The Lord is Risen!
With my prayers and blessing for the march ahead, and please pray for me.
Yours devotedly in Christ,
Bishop Geoffrey Jarrett,
Apostolic Administrator
