adoration and gratitude,
supplication and communion.
Catechism #2099
Lent is a season for sacrifice, a time of deepening our awareness
of our indebtedness to God and of our need to make to Him a response of
love, a response that costs.
Offer everything to God as a
sacrifice, the Angel of Peace counseled the shepherd children of
Fatima.
This is the secret of
the saints, one so beautifully exemplified by St. Francis and St. Clare.
St.
Francis understood this mystery of sacrifice as few others have.
Offer yourselves totally to
Him who gave Himself totally for you,
he admonished his friars.
St. Clare echoed his thought when she wrote:
Season
your sacrifice with salt and by your very life, praise God.
The Seraphic saints both experienced the joy and peace which
come when we
hand
ourselves over to the Lord as an offering to be purified and transformed.
Catechism
#2711
Saints of generous Lenten sacrifice, they were pre-eminently saints of abiding Easter joy. Let us allow their example and prayers to lead us along the way of right sacrifice, so that we can sing in all truth at the Easter Vigil: Therefore, heavenly Father, in the joy of this night, receive our evening sacrifice of praise, your Church’s solemn offering.
as a total offering to the Father’s love and for our salvation.
By uniting ourselves with His sacrifice we can make our lives a sacrifice to God.
Catechism #2100