OAPCE
Lenten message from the Liaison Bishop
✠ Yvan Mathieu, SM
Dear members of the Ontario Association of Parents in Catholic Education (OAPCE),
From Ash Wednesday until Easter Sunday, the whole Church is living the Season of Lent. The word “Lent” translates the Latin word Quadragesima, which simply means forty. It is a reminder of the forty years the people travelled in the wilderness between its liberation from Egypt and its entry in the promised land. Most importantly, it reminds us that, right after his baptism, “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights…” (Matt. 4:1-2). As followers of Jesus, forty days before Easter, we walk in his footsteps, led up by the Spirit and learn from him how to overcome temptations.
Lent is a time of penance and prayer. Most importantly it is also a time of preparation for Baptism. The Sunday Readings of Lent in Year A are oriented towards the main symbols of our Christian Baptism. Like every year, on the first Sunday we read the Temptations Gospel, then the Transfiguration Gospel on the second Sunday. The three other Sundays are oriented towards baptism. With the Samaritan woman, we contemplate Jesus as the source that brings us to eternal life: “The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:14). With the man born blind we are reminded that Jesus is the “light of the world” (John 9:5). Since those two signs, water and light, were given to us at baptism, with Lazarus we confess that Jesus is “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25).
As Catholic parents, we have a responsibility towards our children, whom we presented to Baptism. We committed ourselves to teach them the Gospel. Through are daily lives, we can show them what it means to be “baptized in Christ.” The Season of Lent is a time when we take seriously our commitment to drink from the well that is Christ, to allow his light to shine in our lives by considering ourselves “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (Rom. 6:11)
May this Lent 2023 reminds us of God’s grace and allow us to take seriously our baptismal commitment. The season of Lent will thus prepare us to celebrate the Paschal Mystery.
A good Lent and a Happy and Holy Easter to you all!
Assuring you of my prayer and blessing,