Lent : Come, Lord! Open the path for us.

Lent is “a time to renew our faith, hope and charity,” Pope Francis emphasized in one of his Ash Wednesday messages.
For his part, when asked the possibility of making a “good Lenten journey or of missing Lent, Adrien Candiard, a Dominican friar, answered the journalist of the website La Croix. (French only)
“I don’t know if we can miss it, I don’t know if we can make it. If we make a heroic effort during Lent, we’ve missed everything. Spiritual life is not a video game in which you go from level to level, mastering the game’s data. Spiritual life is about letting the Holy Spirit work in us. We don’t master this process. We open ourselves to it, we receive it, we wait for it, but we do not direct it. Moreover, the spiritual life is rarely linear. Therefore, Lent is a time of effort, when we try to put things in their proper place and refocus on what is essential.”
“Take the road…”
As we approach Lent 2024, Sr. Simone Perras, invites us to take to the road with the theme proposed by the liturgy:
Come, Lord! Open the path for us.
In these tumultuous times, we really do need a guide to help us “take the road that leads to Him (Jesus)”.
The theme song for the French version of this year’s Lenten program, Tout recommence (Robert Lebel), invites us to do just that, with a different road suggested for each week:
TAKE THE ROAD…
… into the desert, where the listening heart is confronted with its desires and choices.
… of the Word, which opens paths and calls us to faithfulness.
… of forgiveness, where God’s love is offered despite all our failings.
… of transfiguration, a place of comfort where Jesus reveals his glory and his divinity.
… of the cross, a place of total gift and of the promise that love triumphs over evil.
… of the Resurrection, a place of great joy, where everything begins anew in Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Lord, make your ways known to me,
teach me your paths.
Set me in the way of your truth, and teach me,
for you are the God who saves me.
(Psalm 25: 4-5)
Which road will be able to strengthen our faith and support our mission?
At the same time, several dioceses are preparing documents for celebrations and times of reflection during this period. You can also read the Pope’s message, available in English, Spanish and French.