Can I begin with a scene from Scripture? Adam and Eve have just sinned, and they hear “the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen 3:8).  This must have been a daily occurrence. The first pair had this garden to cultivate, and every evening, their work done, would go for a walk together and be joined by the Lord. He would ask them, What kind of day have you had? And they would tell him, and the conversation would flow. What a beautiful image for intimacy with God, for the familiarity he loves to have with us, for his friendship. There is a garden in each of us and there too the Lord loves to walk with us. This day, unfortunately, they have sinned, fear has come in, and to avoid the Lord they try to hide among the trees, like naughty children. They don’t keep the usual rendezvous, and the Lord God calls out, “Where are you?” Why do we think this was a cry of anger? Surely it was a cry of concern: the children are missing. God is already looking for the lost. How different history would have been had they just said “sorry” and run to his arms! “Where are you?” That is the question Lent puts to us, puts to our lives. Where are we in relation to the friendship the Lord invites us to? Does he walk in the garden of my heart? Do I share my life with him and let him share his with me? Lent is a return to the garden.

Every year, the Pope writes a message for Lent. This year’s message, the first from Pope Leo, begins: “Lent is a time in which the Church, guided by a sense of motherly care, invites us to place the mystery of God back in the centre of our lives”. I like the reference to the Church’s “motherly care”. Lent is a gift of our spiritual mother the Church. Lent itself can be thought of as a lady, Lady Lent, wearing her seasonal purple. In past times, a bishop would write to his people before Lent, recalling the Church’s teaching and directives on fasting and abstinence. This was a motherly thing too.

The Prophets and the Gospels call us to repent: “Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments”. “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand”, says John the Baptist, and the Lord. How often we hear David’s great prayer: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your merciful love”. Indeed, it’s all about “placing the mystery of God back in the centre of our lives”. And to this all of us are called all the time.

But how do we do penance? Here enters Mother Church. She helps us, individually and as the Body of Christ. Very practically. Scripture says “Repent”. Mother Church says now, and how.  So, says Canon Law, “special days of penance are prescribed.”

These days are: every Friday of the year and every day of Lent, beginning today.

And what are the “deeds of penance”? In the Gospel we’ve just heard, the Lord picks up on the ancient Jewish triad: prayer, fasting, almsgiving. We follow the Gospel.  We return to the Lord in this three-fold way, all-encompassing. We’re urged to devote ourselves in a special way to prayer, to “works of piety and charity”, and to self-denial. And what is self-denial? First of all, it’s doing our duty, doing what we are meant to be doing already, more faithfully still: fulfilling the obligations we have in our family life, our work, our social and religious duties, in accepting the inconveniences, trials, uncertainties, challenges and sufferings of life in a Christian way. This is the first and essential form of self-denial. The second is the practice of fasting and abstinence.

Abstinence means abstinence from meat, and it binds us from the age of 14 for the rest of our life. It is required today and on Good Friday, and recommended for Holy Saturday. In the universal Church it is required on every Friday of the year, though in Scotland it may be replaced by some other good work.

Fasting, in Church law, means limiting oneself to one proper meal in the day – snacks are not forbidden, but they should not amount to another full meal. Fasting binds us from the age of 18 till we become 60. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are the days of o bligatory fasting. These, of course, are the common, minimal requirements; we’re nor forbidden to do more!

Such is the general guidance of the Church, Christ’s “ambassador”, like St Paul. And now it’s for each of us to take this opportunity, to seize the now. “Behold, now is the favourable time; behold now is the day of salvation.” To hear the Lord asking, “Where are you?” and to respond.

Can I offer something myself:

• try a book for Lent, a book that will help you put the mystery back at the centre
• take a vice, take an addiction, and pick a fight with it. And every time you fail, then simply, peacefully, say a prayer, say the Hail Mary, even just part of it, and you will find the bad habit starts to loosen its grip
• think of the lonely and the ill and the people you neglect in your life, and reach out to them: send them a text, give them a call, pay them a visit, sit and listen to them.

May the Lord bless our Lent! May we find our way back to the garden within where the Lord walks with us (think of Jesus and Mary Magdalene), to the inner room where the Father waits for us. May we hear the “sound of the Lord God” as he comes close, that “sound” who is his Word, his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.