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In his Sunday allocution, Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García, Archbishop of Havana, recalls that Jesus not only purifies us of our sins, but also makes us partakers of his own strength and wisdom. Bringing up recent words from Pope Francis, on his visit to Iraq, he insisted that Christ “frees us in a way of understanding faith, the family, the community that divides, that it contrasts, that excludes, so that we can build a Church and society open to everything and solicitous towards our brothers and sisters most in need.” He strengthens us so that we can resist the temptation to seek vengeance, that plunges us into a spiral of endless retaliation.

It would be good if today we asked each other these two questions: Am I a joyful or sad Christian? And if I’m sad, what are the motives or are they? Circumstantial sadness can affect us, but not invading or nullify us, it may come, but it has no right to stay permanently. Today’s Christians, anywhere in the world, at the social moment we live in, cannot allow the widespread sadness, manifested in recurrent and collective discouraged conformism, to become the endemic, if not pandemic, disease of our time. Thus, on the way to Easter, even on the tortuous paths of suffering and the cross, we never lack the joy of knowing ourselves loved by the Father and saved by Christ the Lord. And may we be able to externalize and communicate the joy of the gospel wherever we live without complexes and with determination.

Weave networks of brotherhood and mercy in Cuba, it is for Sister Onoria Paredes, a great blessing. In Jaimanites and Holy Faith, where his religious congregation is based, he lives daily, in communion with the laity and pastors, liturgical celebrations and the sacraments, fraternity and the practice of the works of mercy with the needy.

In his Sunday address this March 7, Msgr. Ramón Suárez Polcari, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of #LaHabana, reminds us that leadership in the Church belongs only to Christ. In God’s new people we are all servants and no one is a Christian in preference to a certain person. “We do not follow men, we follow the crucified Christ, scandal for a world that believes only in the power of the effectiveness of plans, of money, of what he solves. You cannot accept to follow Christ by wanting his teaching and his way of life to go through human logic.”

Today’s and all-time man has been tempted to exclude God from his horizon to proclaim himself a god of himself. The consequences have been catastrophic: racial genocides, world wars, predatory subjugations from one people to another. Only God is God and we are his creations, unique and exceptional created in his image, but only creatures. He and only He is the Father who gives us life every day, sustains us in it, and invites us to share it with those around us. The desire to keep his commandments presupposes this understanding of God and the human person. This dependence and commitment, to which we submit freely, does not enslave us, but frees us; it makes us more and better people, citizens more authentic and committed to the society in which we live. It is important that in this time of Lent, before Christ crucified, we identify our crosses, embrace them, and understand that they are crosses that save us because they are part of the cross of Christ, who shares with us their weight and pain. Such an attitude will always demand the utmost from myself, the confrontation of one’s own and others’ lies and injustices, authenticity and coherence in all that I think, say and do, confrontation, to be possible always peaceful and respectful, with those who lie, deceive, manipulate or use others, inside and outside the Church.

For the sister of God’s Love, Antonia (Toñi) Valverde, Lent is a time to become and be more what God wants. It is an opportunity for patient, thoughtful listening that allows you to grow in work and spirit.

In his allocution on this second Sunday in Lent, Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García, Archbishop of Havana, tells us that in order to find strength, encouragement, on the path of life and in the face of failures and sufferings, “we must go up to a place where we can find God”. And that place, he says, “is personal, family, ecclesial prayer. Each of us needs to see God, we need to listen to the Son of God speaking to us.” That listening must be accompanied by prayer and acting.

How many times do we distrust God! And we ask him, do you really exist, why do you ask us for so many sacrifices, why don’t you fix this or that personal or social problem? Abraham’s example impels us to continue to say yes to God, even in the rawest times, in unexplained and irrational situations. Faith and trust in God leads us to stand before Him with all that we are and have, including all our miseries, to say to Him, “Here I am, Lord.” The encounter with God does not alienat us, but transforms us and makes our understanding of life and the world around us another, his, always more authentic and elevated. It does not change that reality; we’re the ones who change. Let us live in this Lent the experience of feeling transformed and transfigured by the Grace of the Lord to be more and better Christians in everyday life.