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Hub Self Care Employees A Lenten Self-Care Reflection: Reflect, Repent, and Renew

A Lenten Self-Care Reflection: Reflect, Repent, and Renew

  By: Lorenzo Centino, LCDC Lead Advocacy Officer

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There would be people who might shake heads in protestation that practices of lent and preparations for elections are separate concerns reflecting the duality between faith and politics. These people would say, on the one hand, that lent is a special spiritual moment whereby the concern is to intensify the renewal of one’s relationship with God and, on the other hand, election is a moment whereby citizens of a sovereign nation intensify their political participation by electing leaders to key positions in government. This view gives no room for the spiritual and political to have a point of convergence in a particular moment in time.

Christians are challenged to take active participation in political affairs of the state. Pope Francis clearly said that “A good Catholic meddles in politics, offering the best of himself, so that those who govern can govern. But what is the best that we can offer to those who govern? Prayer!” Lent is a special moment of prayer, forty days of reflection, repentance, and renewal through personal and traditional spiritual exercises. As a nation, our Lenten celebration this year precedes our national elections. To choose leaders that our nation needs and deserves at this point in our history is a crucial decision to make. A decision that must be done with informed discernment that must be undertaken in prayer. Prayer will help voters to cast their votes with dignity, bereft of any selfish and partisan agenda and influences.

Putting the 2022 national elections at the center of our prayer in this time of lent is very Christian and patriotic. Just as Pope Francis said that prayer is the best that we can offer to those who govern, we can use this Lenten season to reflect on our situation and pray for guidance in choosing the best candidates to vote for, those who can selflessly serve and respond to our country’s urgent needs and problems.

In the Gospel Reading of the Passion of the Lord according to St. Matthew on Good Friday, we find a semi-election that took place. Pilate asked the people to make a choice: ““Whom do you want me to release for you, Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah? (Mt. 27:17).” Though the choice to make is not for electing a leader (political), the choice shouted by the people were not based on personal discernment but by the direct influence and meddling of the chief priests and the elders that persuaded and influenced the people to choose Barabbas. In the preparation for the coming elections, guides for discernment based on truth and moral principles are made available to assist us in making decisions. They are not endorsement of specific political candidates. They are checklists of values that we need in a leader. The Statement of the De La Salle Brothers in the Philippines “Discerning Our Future: The 2022 Elections” provides us with ethical and moral principles in discerning the kind of leaders we deserved. However, these guides are not only meant to measure up the candidates that we will choose but also measures to assess and judge ourselves. As Lasallians, I invite everyone to study prayerfully the Statements of the Lasallian Brothers not just as a guide to evaluate the candidates for the upcoming national and local elections but also to examine ourselves. Let us reflect, repent, and renew.

The theme of our self-care this week challenges us to reflect, repent, and renew. As we discern the kind of leaders that we want, the measures we used to evaluate them must also be the same measures we have to use to evaluate ourselves as we reinvigorate our relationship with the Lord in this season of lent. There are four categories of values that are commonly used in evaluating a candidate: Maka-Diyos, Maka-Tao, Maka-Bayan and Maka-Kalikasan. Of the four categories, the Maka-Kalikasan gets the least attention from voters, and non-voters alike, as an urgent election issue. Pope Francis is very loud in pointing out in his messages that the ecological crisis we are facing is a moral issue that does not only invoke the moral consciences of environmentalists and scientists but more so to our policy makers and political leaders and ourselves. As we reflect who are the best candidates we will vote according to the guides that we used, let us also reflect, repent of our shortcomings and renew ourselves as we ponder upon these words of Pope Francis “The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she “groans in travail” (Rom 8:22). We have forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we receive life and refreshment from her waters” (Laudato Si #2). May our Lenten reflection and preparation for the national and local elections renew us, especially in our commitment to take care, defend and sustain our common home, our one and only planet Earth. May this Lenten season lead us to ecological conversion that will be reflected in our actions and the votes we will cast on election day/days.