Venezuela, 02/28/2023, Sr. Nícida Díaz Leal.- Lent is an opportune time to decide to take seriously our discernment, our life before to the Lord and to our brothers and sisters. God makes it easy for us; but we complicate this itinerary, always looking for escapes from our human horizon, and we get mixed up with the spiritual worldliness that hardens the heart and closes the siege to our divine horizon. It is there that we find the strength and grace to live our conversion experience simply and gracefully.

To take seriously our discernment before a "spiritual worldliness, which hides behind the appearance of piety and even love for the Church, consists in seeking not the Lord’s glory but human glory and personal well-being”[1], A clear sign that tells us if we have fallen into it is to reject all prophecy that comes from our brothers and sisters, not to accept our sins, and not to open our hearts to the experience of forgiveness that brings inner peace.

To take our life seriously before the Lord and our brothers and sisters. Not with the pharisaical attitude that lives on how much and so much, presenting a bill to the Lord and ignoring our own reality "I am not like other men or like this tax collector" (Lk 18:11). To live facing the Lord is to assume and accept in fidelity, that which he asks of us "to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bonds, to set at liberty those who are broken, and to throw off every yoke... Will it not be to break your bread to the hungry, and to welcome the homeless poor into your home, that when you see the naked you cover him, and do not turn away from your fellow man? Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your wound shall be healed quickly. Your righteousness shall precede you, and the glory of Yahweh shall follow you. Then you will cry out, and Yahweh will answer you: "Here I am" (Is 58:1-9).

Living facing the Lord, leads us to live facing our brothers and sisters, to welcome and serve each one in the situation and condition in which they live, this experience is a healing and liberating experience, because it makes us come out of our self-referentiality to make ourselves available to God and to our brothers and sisters. Only God alone fills the insatiable desire of our heart, healing every inner fissure; and turning us towards what makes us joyful and fulfilled, namely, the giving of life in the unconditionality of love to heal and liberate.

Then, and only then, "you will cry out, and Yahweh will answer you: "Here am I" (Is 58:9). Revealing his face to us in the different realities that each brother and sister lives. This revelation challenges us to “ sharing a “mystique” of living together, of mingling and encounter, of embracing and supporting one another”[2], of living a true experience of fraternity. to live a true experience of fraternity which is the living cry of our humanity.

In the end we will celebrate the Glory of God, which is none other than that which shines on our face and on the face of our brothers and sisters when we give life and in abundance, healing, liberating, forgiving and holding out our arms to reach out in a single fraternal embrace to those who have lost all consolation and all hope. To embrace the Lord of Life in all human flesh. "Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your wound will be healed quickly. Your righteousness shall go before you, and the glory of Yahweh shall follow you” (Is 58,8).

[1] S.S. Francis. Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium No. 93

[2] S.S. Francis. Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium No. 87