Month: February 2023

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Why do we celebrate Lent?

Prior to Holy Week and Easter Sunday, we celebrate what is known as Lent, but what is Lent and why do we celebrate it? Lent is a liturgical time of preparation and conversion, just as an athlete prepares himself in time for a competition, we during the time of Lent, through three spiritual pillars, prayer, fasting and almsgiving (CCC 1434, 1438), we prepare spiritually for the central celebration of the Church, Easter Sunday.

Lent lasts forty days, beginning on Ash Wednesday and extending until Holy Week. Lent is followed by the “Pascual Triduum”; Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, time in which we commemorate the passion, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ until Easter Sunday.

During these forty days the Church asks us to focus on three spiritual actions; prayer, which will give us time to be alone with God, since this is the living relationship of the children of God with their Father who is good beyond measure, with his Son Jesus Christ and with the Holy Spirit.  (CCC 2565); fasting, through which we renounce bodily passions, and together with prayer, open up our hunger for God; and almsgiving, which is a testimony of fraternal charity (CCC 2462), through which we practice the works of mercy entrusted to us by Jesus Christ (Matthew 24:31-46).

Let us practice these spiritual pillars during the Lenten season, so that we can draw closer to God, hunger for Him, and be able to serve Him here on Earth, in preparation for our main celebration, the commemoration of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, by His death and resurrection make us, together with Him, children of God and heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven.

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Why do I have to get married by the Church?

When we start to reflect when Jesus explains the alliance that a marriage means, an alliance for life (Matthew 19:4-9). We may have been tempted to think the same as his disciples the first time they heard His words, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry” (Matthew 19:10). So why should we seek the sacrament of marriage?

Although we can establish a union through a legal contract, this does not take us far from the days when marriage was simply a consent between the groom and the father of the one who would be the wife. We as children of God and heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven by the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, are called to ask God to bless our union, as Tobias
recognized before consummating his marriage (Tobit 8:4-8).

Once blessed by the sacrament of marriage, consecrated by the grace of our baptism, and following the call to holiness that Jesus Christ gave us (Matthew 5:48), our mutual mission as a married couple is now, through our actions, that a once the time of the final judgment has arrived, our spouse is deserving of the Kingdom of Heaven, work for our mutual sanctification, because now we are no longer two but one. One in our walk of faith, one in the formation of our children, one alone in the example we set for others. Jesus Christ himself has told us that we are to be known by our fruits (Matthew 7:16-20).

Jesus Christ elevated the ceremony of marriage to a sacrament at the wedding at Cana, performing the miracle of turning water into wine; so also Jesus Christ has turned us into new wine through the purifying water of our baptism, let us accept the call of Jesus Christ to live in holiness, and if we ever have problems in our marriage let us turn to Mary, our mother, who with her wise words always is going to advise us: “Do everything He tells you” (John 2:5).

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Why do we make the sign of the Cross?

Before each prayer we make the sign of the Cross, but why do we do it? The sign of the cross comes from the first centuries of Christianity, since we find in the writings of Tertullian, who lived between the years 160 and 220 AD, the following: “In all our travels and movements, in all our departures and arrivals, When we put on our shoes, when we take a bath, at the table, when we light our candles, when we go to bed, when we sit down, in any of the tasks in which we occupy ourselves, we mark our foreheads with the sign of the cross.”, the first Christians justified this sign according to the book of Revelation where it is indicated that the servants of God will have a seal on their foreheads (Revelation 7:3, 9:4, 14:1).

This sign on the forehead later evolved into the sign of the cross that we know today, from the forehead to the chest, indicating that Jesus Christ descended from heaven to earth in his Incarnation, and from the left shoulder to the right, indicating that after his death He descended into hell and ascended to Heaven, where he is seated at the right hand of the Father.

It is during the sign of the cross that we say the words: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”, thus certifying that the name of God is one and that God is expressed in the three persons of the Holy Trinity. It is also by pronouncing these words that we express our baptismal legacy, where we die to sin and rise in Christ. By making the sign of the cross we are witnessing with body and soul our faith, we mark the cross in ourselves, thus claiming to ourselves the Cross of Christ and His victory over sin through His sacrifice.

Let’s be aware of everything we express when we make the sign of the cross and say the words that accompany it. Let us always be witnesses and proclaim our faith before the world, that our Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross for the atonement of our sins and by His sacrifice and resurrection we have been saved.

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What do we celebrate on Candlemas?

On February 2, the Church traditionally celebrates Candlemas, but how does this celebration come about? According to the law (Leviticus 12:1-4), a woman could not touch anything consecrated to God or enter the temple until 40 days after giving birth, this feast of the purification of Mary and the presentation of Jesus to the temple (Luke 2:22-23) occurs for this reason 40 days after Christmas. Jesus was not only presented to the temple but also consecrated to God, according to the law (Exodus 13:2).

On Candlemas, the Catholic faithful will take home candles that have been blessed, these candles will symbolize Jesus Christ, the wax being a symbol of his pure body, the wick the symbol of his soul, and the flame symbol of his divinity.

This candle, every time it is lit in your home, will remind us that Jesus Christ is the Light of the world, that all those who follow him will have the light that gives life and will not walk in darkness (John 8:12).

It is following this sacred tradition that we bring our children shortly after they are born to present them to our Lord, and then consecrate them to God through baptism.

Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal.” Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own “always, to the close of the age” (CCC 80)

Let us be part of the Church’s tradition, which is a living transmission, carried out by the Holy Spirit, which, although it is different from Holy Scripture, is closely connected to it. Through it, the Church in her doctrine, life and worship, perpetuates and transmits to every generation all that she herself is, all that she believes (CCC 78).