Happy Ash Wednesday! Today is the beginning of the 40-day period we call Lent, a penitential season during which we are invited to deepen our conversion in Christ.
Yesterday was the first session of the Lent Retreat in Daily Living I am offering at UST Law School. The theme of this retreat is Following in the Footsteps of Jesus. During Lent we will not only walk with Jesus, but see what we can learn from those who walked with him during his time on earth. Some of those people are models of discipleship; others took some missteps (some small and some large) along the way. Both have the ability to help us reflect on our own capacity to be tempted away from true discipleship.
During my talk yesterday, I gave an introduction to the theme and talked about the flow of our weeks together. Then I talked about our focus for the first week of prayer: getting in touch with God’s love. As I’ve said and written before, I believe it is important to begin any period of retreat or intense prayer by focusing on God’s love for us, on getting a deep sense of ourselves as the beloved of God.
You can access a recording of my talk here or stream it from the icon below. (The podcast runs for 29:51.) A copy of the prayer material I distributed is here. (If there is any flatness or misspeaking in the talk, my apologies; apart from fatigue from having just returned from visiting my dying aunt, I learned moments before going into the session that she was in her final hours.)
Creo en Dios! 