Lent 2026 - Reading #48 - Love (Charity)
Reading
Pope Benedict XVI, in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est, offers the definitive Christian reflection on love: "Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction. We have come to believe in God's love: in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life." Benedict continues: "God's love for us is fundamental for our lives, and it raises important questions about who God is and who we are. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. These words from the First Letter of John express with remarkable clarity the heart of the Christian faith: the Christian image of God and the resulting image of mankind and its destiny." The pope concludes: "Love of God and love of neighbor are now truly united: in the most abandoned person we see the image of God, and to serve that person becomes an act of love for God. Love of neighbor is thus shown to be possible in the way proclaimed by the Bible, by Jesus. It consists in the very fact that, in God and with God, I love even the person whom I do not like or even know. This can only take place on the basis of an intimate encounter with God.
Reflection
Holy Saturday. The final day of Lent. Fifty days since the journey began, and we rest in the silence between the cross and the resurrection. The tomb is sealed. The world holds its breath. And in this silence, Benedict speaks the word that encompasses everything: God is love. Our pilgrimage through the seven virtues has been, from first to last, a journey into the heart of this reality. We began with prudence, the ability to see clearly, and what do we now see? Love. We practiced justice, giving to each what is due, and what is due to every person? Love. We cultivated fortitude, the strength to endure, and what sustains endurance? Love. We learned temperance, the ordering of desire, and what is the proper ordering of all desire? Toward love. We received faith, trust in the unseen God, and who is this God? Love. We embraced hope, confidence in the promised future, and what does the future hold? Love, perfected and unending. Today, in the stillness of Holy Saturday, hold all of this gently. The journey is almost complete. Tomorrow, the stone will be rolled away. The alleluias will return. The fast will be broken, the feast will begin, and the love that endured the cross will be revealed as stronger than death itself. Everything you have done these fifty days, every prayer, every fast, every honest examination of conscience, every act of kindness and self-denial, has been preparing you for this moment. You are not the person who received ashes on Ash Wednesday. You have been changed. Love has been doing its work in you, virtue by virtue, day by day. Now receive the gift that awaits you. Christ is risen, or rather, he will be, tomorrow. But today, in hope and in love, we wait. And the waiting itself is holy.