"Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Sacred Lenten Season for us Christians. These Forty Days of Lent are as sacred to us as Ramadan is to our Moslem Brothers and Sisters. Let us, therefore, prepare to enter this holy season in the spirit of prayer and generosity to take on sacrifice and the discipline of self.

“For some, sacrifice begins slowly as an attitude of the heart, and then as a willingness to do better, or just yielding to the prompting to give a little bit more for the cause of the poor. For very many of our brothers and sisters, life is already sacrifice. And yet beyond fasting as inflicting pain to one’s self, God looks at freeing the oppressed, sharing one’s food with the hungry, sheltering the homeless, as the special forms of fasting and sacrifice. (Isaiah 58:5-7).

We can still find prayer in the Church, in our hearts, in the moments of quiet, in the Sacrament, in the Eucharist, in reading or singing of the Pasyon ng Panginoon.

Our Lord Jesus Christ went to his own forty days and forty nights in the desert to pray, to fast and to be tempted. (Mt 4:1-11).

The Lenten Season is the closest most of us, Christians, can make the Spiritual Exercises. Let us make it at least in spirit, that accompanying Jesus Christ through these forty days, we may—as better Christians and Citizens—share in His Glory and the Joy at the Resurrection. This time of Lent, let us pray and care for one another.

God love and Bless Us All.