Third youth preparation meeting towards Madrid

Today, March 12, our third meeting of the members of the group preparing to travel to Madrid took place. The theme this time was: Lent, which began last Wednesday, on Ash Wednesday, and will continue until Holy week. We spoke about the meaning of the fast, its characteristics, its customs, etc.

We began the morning with songs and then we read the reading from the gospel of Matthew (6:1-18) in which Jesus commands us: “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them”, that is he commands us to practice our piety in secret, not so that we will be seen but because this is what we believe we must do.

Something else Jesus commanded us is: “whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you”, that is Jesus comes to tell us that we must pray alone, in secret, we must be with God for ourselves without anyone knowing, and we must not go out and publicize the fact that we pray.

Another commandment that Jesus commands us: “when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may be seen not by others but by your Father who is in secret”. Again, Jesus tells us that we must not show the world that we are fasting and that we are suffering but rather, on the contrary, we must show joy so that no one will know that we are fasting.

Father Apolinary led us to ask a number of questions: How can Jesus command us to be the light of the world and to show our faith but at the same time tell us to do everything in secret? And does the fact that we are to pray alone in our room mean that we do not need to pray in church?

The answer is that we must do everything in secret but in our behavior and with the help of the strength and faith we derive from prayer, we must help guide others, not by publicizing what we do or by making known our prayers but rather by how we behave to one another, how we love, respect and help each other.

The fact that we pray alone in our room is indeed for us and it is another way to communicate with God. It is a kind of personal relationship with God but prayer in church brings us together with other believers like us, gives us strength to be, together, a light for the world that lights up other people and reminds us of the fact that we are one big community and together we can constitute a certain strength!

In the second part, after the lunch break, we discussed proposals concerning what each one might do during Lent which would be different from the ordinary things we do on regular days, things that break with routine. Following this, each one took time to think and to jot down on a piece of paper something that he or she promised to do during Lent. When we gathered again, we placed these papers into a safe and when Lent is over we will open the safe and see whether we kept our promises.

So, I wish that we might succeed to keep our promises. I wish each one a blessed period in which you might indeed experience communion with God, each one in his or her own way and that Lent might be a time of quiet and tranquility, days full of love and helping others – Good luck!