Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
We are about to enter the Lent, commemorating Jesus’ fasting
and conquering the temptations of the devil in the desert, to spend
time in prayer, penance, fasting, and acts of piety. We observe fifty
days and nights of the Lent from the evening of Pethoortha Sunday
to the evening of Holy Saturday. “The Spirit led him into the desert.
He was tempted by the devil and remained there forty days” (Luke
4:1) is the scriptural foundation for observation of the Lent. And for
these seven weeks of fasting before the Feast of the Resurrection,
the Church invites us to self-sanctification by exhorting to prayer
and charity.
