A Note from Fr. Greg

“Repent and believe in the gospel.”

These words are a familiar beginning to the Lenten Season. Year after year we hear them in the readings that initiate this season. They offer a gentle reminder of our sinful nature and our need for God’s saving grace. They are appropriate to focus on as we enter the season of Lent and prepare to celebrate the greatest mystery of all time, the mystery through which our salvation was made possible — the passion, death, and ultimately the resurrection of our Lord and Savior.

Lent is a time when we focus in a particular way on our sinfulness. We recognize that it is because of the sins of humanity that Jesus had to suffer and die. We fast and pray to join our Lord’s efforts in making reparations for our sins. But we don’t celebrate this season filled with hopelessness and despair. Rather, we are quite hopeful. We know that Christ died for our sins and then rose from the dead, offering us life everlasting. That’s the gospel message. That’s what we believe. It is full of hope for us.

It is no secret that our world is wrought with sin. All one has to do is turn on the television or open the newspaper to see evidence of that. And, yet, we have good news for all. Let us take the opportunity this Lent to proclaim the good news, not only with our words, but by the way we live our lives. Ours should be lives lived in hope of salvation. Ours should be lives lived in service for others. Ours should be lives through which others see Jesus at work in the world.

A life lived as such is not easy. It is full of responsibility, but it is also full of tremendous grace and other invaluable rewards, not the least of which is bringing others to Christ. Let’s follow Christ’s example as disciples are supposed to do — living in this world but not of it, proclaiming the gospel to all we meet and encouraging one another to “repent and believe”.

In our Father’s Hands,

Fr. Greg