My brothers and sisters in Christ,

      As I write this pastoral letter to you, Ash Wednesday is winding down, and our Lenten observance has begun. We have heard the challenge of this fruitful time, “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.” Thus begins our journey toward Easter, by recalling the very reason for our need of redemption: sin. The fact that humanity was enslaved to sin is the very reason for the Lord’s Passion, Death and Resurrection which we will solemnly commemorate at the conclusion of these 40 days.

      Though we are redeemed, the reality of sin is still with us as human beings. This time of repentance and conversion is really for all of us, though it is especially for those who are catechumens and candidates who will embrace the fullness of our faith by receiving the Sacraments of Initiation at Easter. By calling to mind our sins, we recognize above all our need for God, our need for a redeemer, and we gratefully proclaim that redeemer to be Jesus Christ.

The preface to the Eucharistic Prayer that is used on Ash Wednesday says that through the observance of Lent God corrects our faults and raises our minds to him. This happens principally in three ways, the traditional pillars of the Lenten discipline: prayer, fasting and almsgiving. His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI, in his Ash Wednesday homily, said that prayer, speaking with God, “allows us to be purified and enlightened by his Word…” What else, after all, is conversion than this enlightenment by God’s Word?

In addition to this most basic of helps to our conversion are added the practices of fasting and almsgiving. These are more than mere precepts of the Church to make us more disciplined followers of Christ; they are means by which we conform ourselves, with the aid of divine grace, to the Lord who emptied himself on the Cross and gave of his fullness to enrich our poverty. Let us make this journey with devotion and be renewed in faith, hope and love, that in turn we might renew the world around us by proclaiming with our lives that Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again!

May God bless you all with a holy and prayerful Lent. 

Sincerely yours in Christ, 

Most Rev. Joseph F. Martino, D.D., Hist. E.D.
Bishop of Scranton