Today’s Collect is a good one, and it began like this:

“O God who, though you are ever the cause of the salvation of the human race

now gladden your people with grace in still greater measure…”

This is precisely what’s joyful about Lent: a God who is always active, always gracious, always saving, every day, every year, is now, in the 40 days of Lent, giving grace “in still greater measure”. The river is rising. The tide is coming in. The light is lengthening. God’s eyes, we might say, are on his Son. He sees his outstretched arms on the Cross, he sees the pierced heart, and his own fatherly heart opens in response. Resurrection starts happening and the grace of the Holy Spirit begins to flow. And, my word, are we gladdened! It excites me just entering our Siberian cathedral. Someone will come up to ask how they get baptised, someone will say I want to try the religious life, someone will ask can you hear my confession. I was in London last Saturday for the installation of the new Archbishop of Westminster. In his homily, he said: “In these present times, we are seeing what some have called a ‘quiet revival’ of faith. The fullness of time will show us the depth of this revival, but it is certainly the case that this is a good moment to be a Christian, a Catholic, a disciple of Christ.”  We are in the middle of a “now”. We heard it on Wednesday: “now is the favourable time, now is the day of salvation.”  And we can see it here – we will in a moment – in those being chosen for baptism, those already baptised now preparing to enter into full communion, those already Catholic enrolling to be confirmed. And there are others too.

In his Message for Lent, Pope Leo began: “Lent is a time in which the Church, guided by a sense of maternal care, invites us to place the mystery of God back in the centre of our lives.”  Yes. If we accept the guidance of Mother Lent, this is what we are doing, placing the mystery of God back in the centre of our lives. Those we will pray for in a moment, those readying themselves for Easter, are doing it. People go on retreat, making for example the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius, for the same purpose or visiting a monastery. But the primary retreat the Church gives us, free of charge, are these 40 days. Here are opportunities for Confession, to follow the way of the Cross, to pray, fast and give alms, to hear powerful readings from Scripture and the great Lenten Gospels. Let’s embrace this. “Then, to quote Pope Leo again, the Easter Triduum, which we will celebrate as the summit of the Lenten journey, will unleash all its beauty and meaning.”

But it’s not just us. I mentioned on Ash Wednesday the very first question God puts to us, to Adam and Eve after their fall, “Where are you?” And the prophet Joel then imagined the people’s retort: “Where is our God?” How many victims of abuse must have felt and still feel this. Who doesn’t feel this at times? Where are you? asks God. Where are you, though? we fling back. This is our fallen situation. This is the great rupture. This is the drama of sin. We can see it in ourselves and in our city. We can smell it often. What have we done with our way of life that so many cannot survive without cannabis and alcohol and pornography? But today, in the irrepressible Isaiah, we heard this: “Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am’” Here I am! These three words heal the break, bridge the separation. When the Bridegroom was taken away in his Passion and death, the disciples must have said, “Where is our God?” But the Lord came to the garden and said to Mary Magdalen, Here I am. He said it in the breaking of the bread to the two disheartened disciples, as he says it to us in the Eucharist. He said it from the shore to the disciples fishing all night without success.  He said it to all the disciples on the mountain-top, “Behold, I am with you all days, even to the end of the world”.

“Here I am.” This is what is quietly happening, “Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily.” Here I am, back in the centre. Thus says the Lord to the hearts of our chosen brothers and sisters tonight. To hear that is what Lent and Easter are for. It’s what he is mysteriously saying to those who have suffered at the hands of others, even of their fellow Christians in the Church. He says it to us when we turn to our neighbour, as Isaiah outlines. He is saying it, it seems, in unexpected places, sowing it even in a world aflame with conflicts and ashen with so much grief.

“O God who, though you are ever the cause of the salvation of the human race now gladden your people with grace in still greater measure…”

“Christ himself”, St John Paul II once said, “is the great grace of Lent”. Christ himself. “You shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am’”.

St Mary’s Cathedral Aberdeen, 20 February 2026