God and Venezuela
Since Lent begins today, I want to take the opportunity to write about a subject I love: the wonderful Faith there is in Venezuela.
If there is one great thing about our Land of Grace, it is that here, unlike some “first-world” countries, people speak of God and the Blessed Virgin with great faith, pride, joy and hope.
It often happens that on the street we run into people who are worried or distressed (by the problems of daily life), and as soon as we start talking with them we end up on the subject of praying and asking God and our dear Virgin to help us.
Here you often hear: “God willing,” “I’ll pray that your problem gets solved,” “Don’t worry, God and the Virgin won’t let anything bad happen to you,” “May God and the Virgin protect and bless you,” and so on.
Today, from very early on, our churches will be packed with Catholics going to Mass to receive ashes and begin this season of Lent, in which we prepare to live the great feast of the Resurrection.
Benedict XVI has written a very interesting message for us to meditate on during these days, because it speaks of how the first Christians lived. Besides striving to be exemplary, they frequently practiced correcting one another as a sign of very great love. He points out that nowadays people often clothe the naked, feed the hungry, visit prisoners and comfort the sick, but that one of the principal works of mercy that has been set aside is correcting those who err. This is because of the idea (a product of moral relativism) that everyone can do whatever they please with their lives (and that it is “their problem”), even though they live not on an island, isolated, but in a society that needs their good example.
During Lent, Catholics also customarily practice mortifications and fasting. Venezuela is a country with no shortage of problems (and not only in Lent) that we can offer God as mortifications: for so-and-so’s health, for what’s-his-name’s job, so that our paycheck will stretch, for peace in our country, for so many things…
Our country is also an excellent place for bringing people closer to God. We can talk about confession quite naturally anywhere; because when we bring up crime, the subject of death comes up, and as soon as death comes up, we say we have to pray for God to protect us, and that we must be prepared, so that if our hour comes at the most unexpected moment, “God finds us freshly confessed.”
Some will think I’m talking nonsense, but I like to see the good side of things. Not long ago I was told about a Catholic woman from the Netherlands who came to Mass here in Caracas. When she saw how people hurried to line up at the confessionals, tears of emotion came to her eyes; she had never seen anything like it back home.
If there is one thing many of us Venezuelan Catholics know, it is that we are all sinners, and that it is a wonderful thing to kneel and ask God’s forgiveness (in the sacrament of confession instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ) and to begin again the struggle to become better people day by day.
That is why those of us who are Catholics in this country (and very especially grandparents, parents, teachers, young leaders and those of us who work in the media) hold a great responsibility in our hands.
Because it is not enough to give the example of being good Christians (which we know is essential); we must also speak about our faith, with pride and with joy, because people are eager for us to speak to them about God and about the path to being happy on this earth with so many problems.
In this way we will help many draw closer to Christ, know Him better and love Him with all their hearts.
And the more we speak and spread the word of God with simplicity and clarity (everywhere, at every moment and on every occasion), the more our beloved homeland will be filled with a supernatural love so great that it will never allow anything bad to happen to us. Never!
So today I tell all my fellow Catholics to begin this Lent, which starts today, in high spirits. We have to pray a great deal, because we need it badly! And we must keep forming ourselves better and better in our Faith, so that we can be God’s number-one collaborators and carry the peace of Christ to the hearts of so many people who need it.
Because this beautiful land where God has given us the opportunity to be born and to live expects a great deal from each one of us, A Very Great Deal!