Reverend Fathers, dear consecrated persons, beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord,
All of us need to return to the Lord and to grow in loving closeness to Him. Drawing near to Christ resembles a staircase on which, step by step, from virtue to virtue, we allow ourselves to be embraced by His love and light.
We have begun a new time of grace, Lent, a holy period of preparation for the solemnity of the Lord’s Resurrection. On the first day of Lent, ashes are placed upon our heads and we hear the Savior’s call: “Repent and believe in the Gospel!” This call is addressed personally to each one of us. It brings into our present moment the prophetic message: “Rend your hearts and not your garments, and return to the Lord your God! For He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and He relents from sending calamity” (Joel 2:13).
Ashes call us to conversion. The ashes placed upon our heads remind us that we are pilgrims on this earth and that the goal of our journey is heaven. What would it profit us to gain the world yet fail to reach heaven, where true and eternal happiness awaits us? Ashes remind us of our fragility and that our strength is found in God. They remind us that we are formed from the earth and that we must not forget the One who formed us. “O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Be not exceedingly angry, O Lord, and remember not iniquity forever. Behold, please look, we are all your people” (Isaiah 64:7–8).
There are three principal practices that help us to convert and to draw closer to God during these forty days: fasting, almsgiving, and prayer. Through them, we seek to purify our souls in order to prepare ourselves worthily for the great solemnity of the Lord’s Resurrection.
Fasting purifies us. We do not fast ostentatiously or to attract the attention of others. We fast in secret, with joy, as a time of interior purification. Fasting strengthens our conviction that “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). We fast not in order to accumulate more, but to realize that many things are unnecessary and that perhaps we have become too attached to them. And we already know that fasting is not only abstinence from food. We can fast from a bad habit, from gossip, from addictions, from whatever prevents us from growing in love for God.
Secondly, we are encouraged to practice almsgiving. To give alms means to have a generous heart. Generosity always has its own beauty. Generosity invites reflection. It is a noble and concrete form of Christian witness. Generosity expressed through almsgiving shows that love is not reduced to words and good intentions. Love means good deeds. Love means having eyes that see the needs of others; it means having an open heart and an outstretched hand ready to help.
Thirdly, Lent invites us to prayer. Prayer is the breath of the soul. Without prayer, we cannot grow in the spiritual life. Our world seems increasingly agitated and hurried. We need prayer in our lives in order to maintain our connection with God, who created and redeemed us. Prayer reminds us who we are and who our Creator is. We need communal prayer, together with our brothers and sisters. We also need personal prayer, offered at home or wherever we live our daily lives. Both forms of prayer—communal and personal—practiced together can build a beautiful and fruitful spiritual life.
Among the Lenten devotions, I encourage you to choose as often as possible the Way of the Cross, a profound spiritual practice tested by time. Following Jesus, station by station, we contemplate His great love for us. His suffering on the way of the cross shows how great His desire is for our salvation.
Beloved brothers and sisters, Lent is a journey of hope, because through suffering Christ reaches the Resurrection. The way of the cross leads to the joy of the Easter victory. Per crucem, ad lucem—through the cross, to the light.
The pastoral year 2025–2026, “The Eucharist Nourishes Our Hope,” is a favorable time to focus on the source and summit of Christian life, the Sacrament of the Holy Altar. Out of love, the Savior has remained with us in Holy Communion and always awaits us to nourish our souls. He waits for us to visit Him in our churches, to pray to Him, to speak to Him about our worries and our joys.
The Lent we are living during this pastoral year can be a good opportunity to deepen our understanding of Eucharistic adoration. Adoration helps us place Jesus at the center of our lives. It allows us to evaluate events from the perspective of His presence among us. His presence strengthens us, gives us hope, and consoles us. Therefore, I encourage you to nourish your lives with the Holy Eucharist and to approach as often as possible the sacrament of the Bread broken for the life of the world.
In conclusion, together with Bishop Petru Sescu, Auxiliary Bishop, and Bishop Petru Gherghel, Bishop Emeritus, we send you our good wishes and blessing. May the good God bless us with a Lent rich in spiritual fruits.
† Iosif PĂULEȚ
Bishop of Iași
