It is right
to offer sacrifice
to God
as a sign of
adoration and gratitude,
supplication 
and communion.
                                (CATECHISM #2099)

            Lent is a season for sacrifice, a time of deepening our awareness of our indebtedness to God and of our need to make to Him a response of love, a response that costs.

            Offer everything to God as a sacrifice, the Angel of Peace counseled the shepherd children of Fatima.  This is the secret of the saints, one so beautifully exemplified by St. Francis and St. Clare.

The only perfect sacrifice 
is the one Christ offered on the Cross|
as a total offering
to the Father’s love
and for our salvation.
By uniting ourselves with His sacrifice
we can make our lives a sacrifice to God.
(#2100)

            St. Francis understood this mystery of sacrifice as few others have.  Offer yourselves totally to Him who gave Himself totally for you, he admonished his friars.  St. Clare echoed his thought when she wrote: Season your sacrifice with salt and by your very life, praise God.  The Seraphic saints both experienced the joy and peace which come when we hand ourselves over to the Lord as an offering to be purified and transformed.  (#2711)

            Saints of generous Lenten sacrifice, they were pre-eminently saints of abiding Easter joy.  Let us allow their example and prayers to lead us along the way of right sacrifice, so that we can sing in all truth at the Easter Vigil: Therefore, heavenly Father, in the joy of this night, receive our evening sacrifice of praise, your Church’s solemn offering.

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