Billet du 16/02/2016

Lent is a time of grace during which we are urged to withdraw into the desert, as Jesus did, preparing for his ministry by a long retreat of forty days. We can live this season to both reign in our mediocrity and negligence, and to listend to the voice of God who calls us to conversion.

The desert is a place of silence, destitution, solitude and even of death. It can fill us with disquiet and even repulsion, but if we are willing to be attentive, it is also the privileged place where we meet with God, where we experience his mercy and his forgiveness. But this means that it is necessary for us in turn to practice mercy and forgiveness with our neighbor: "Be merciful as your Father is merciful".

May this Lenten season find in us more of this look of kindness and condolence towards our brothers, who feel difficulties and who are plunged into physical or spiritual poverty, who know sadnesses of any kind: "Be delighted with him who is well, weep with him who weeps" (Ro. 12, 15). The Father, who scrutinizes the secret of our hearts, will reward us.

+ br. Philippe Dupont, abbot