Lent should be a time for deeper meditation on the word of God, which will lead to conversion and to concrete acts of charity, said Pope Benedict XVI.

“Lent stimulates us to allow our lives to be penetrated by the word of God and in that way to know the fundamental truth about who we are, where we come from, where we are going and what is the path we must follow in our lives,” the pope said March 1, Ash Wednesday.

Speaking at his weekly general audience, held under a light rain in St Peter's Square, the pope urged Catholics to allow themselves to be “nourished with the abundance of the word of God” during Lent.

In his main audience talk, sprinkled with explanations not contained in his prepared text, the pope looked at the two phrases used when distributing ashes: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return” and “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.”

The first, he said, is a reminder that people have fallen and have limits, and it “is meant to urge us to place all our hope in God alone.”

Lent is a time of “fasting, penance and vigilance over ourselves, knowing that the struggle against sin never ends because temptation is an everyday reality, and fragility and disillusionment are experienced by everyone,” the pope said.

The admonition to “convert and believe in the Gospel,” he said, “places firm and faithful adhesion to the Gospel at the foundation of personal and communal renewal.”

“The Christian life is a life of faith founded and nourished on the word of God,” he said. “In the trials of life and before every temptation, the secret of victory consists in listening to the word of truth and decisively refusing falsehood and evil.

“This is the real programme of the Lenten period: to listen to the word of truth, to live, speak and act in truth and to refuse falsehood, which poisons humanity and is at the root of all evil,” the pope said.

One who follows the truth, meditates on the Gospel and draws closer and closer to God, he said, also “sees others with new eyes. He discovers his brothers and sisters and their needs.”

“Because the truth of God is love, conversion to God is conversion to love,” Pope Benedict said.

The “climate of Lent”, he said, “is precisely the climate of love for our brothers and sisters” because it is a time for learning to see others with Christ's eyes.

Pope Benedict said because conversion includes a growing realisation of the obligation to demonstrate love for one's neighbours charity and almsgiving are central to the Lenten practice.

Lenten practices like fasting express faith, not burden

Lenten practices like fasting should be experienced as an expression of faith, not as a difficult burden, Pope Benedict XVI said.

“During this period, one abstains from singing ‘Alleluia', and people are invited to practice appropriate forms of penitential sacrifice,” he said.

“The time of Lent should not be faced with an old spirit, as if it were a heavy and bothersome burden, but with the new spirit of one who has found in Jesus and in his mystery the meaning of life and understands that everything now refers to him,” he said.

The pope was preparing for his own Lenten retreat March 5-11. During that time, papal appointments are cancelled and the pontiff joins Roman Curia officials twice a day to pray and listen to Lenten sermons.

Preaching the pope's retreat this year will be Cardinal Marco Ce, a theologian and biblicist and the retired patriarch of Venice , Italy . Cardinal Ce has used his free time in recent years to conduct many spiritual retreats for bishops, priests, religious orders and lay groups.

The theme of this year's papal retreat is Walking With Jesus Toward Easter, Guided by the Evangelist Mark.

(CNS)