Lent is a time when some people complete their preparation to be baptised at Easter and a time when the baptised "learn to become Christian again," Pope Benedict XVI said.

Although following Christ requires daily prayer and effort, Lent is a time for intensive training for living the Christian life, the pope said during his weekly general audience Feb 21, Ash Wednesday.

Jesus called people to “convert and believe in the Gospel,” he said.
“Conversion, what is it really? To convert means to seek God, to go to him, to follow docilely the teaching of his Son, Jesus Christ,” the pope said.

“Conversion is not an effort for self-realisation because the human being is not the architect of his own eternal destiny,” he said. “We are not our own makers, and so self-realisation is a contradiction.”

Conversion means recognising that God is the origin and destination of all human life and, therefore, one's efforts and actions must be dedicated to discovering God's will and obeying it, the pope said.

“Conversion means not pursuing personal success, which is something that will pass, but abandoning human security and following the Lord with simplicity and trust,” he said.

Pope Benedict told an estimated 6,000 audience participants that in his message for Lent (see page 10), “I wanted to focus on the immense love God has for us,” a love that is so great that he allowed his Son to die in order to save people.

“The cross is the definitive revelation of divine love and mercy,” he said.

“God is love, and his love is the secret of our happiness,” the pope said.
By undertaking a Lenten journey of prayer, reflection, penance, sacrifice and works of charity, he said, Christians overcome their own selfishness and grow in realisation of how great God's love is.

Pope Benedict prayed that during Lent Christians would be overwhelmed by God's love and learn to pass it on “to our neighbours, especially those who are suffering or are in difficulty.”

(CNS)