REPENT AND BELIEVE THE GOSPEL

                The season of Lent is the Church’s annual retreat. It is a time for us to prepare ourselves through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving for the great celebration of Easter. As we take time each year during this time to reflect more deeply on the Paschal Mystery (the suffering, death, and rising of Jesus), we look at our own lives and uncover all that diminishes or distracts us from our relationship with God and Christ.

                Jesus began his public ministry with the words: “Repent and believe in the gospel.” Since that time the Church has never ceased to call people from sin to conversion especially through the celebration of the Sacrament of Penance.

                During Lent the whole Church responds to the call of the Lord to be reconciled with each other and with God. The practices of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving offer opportunities to all the faithful to make Jesus’ call to repentance a personal journey in these forty days.