CV NEWS FEED // Archbishop Emeritus Allen Vigneron of Detroit, Michigan, released a March 4 pastoral letter encouraging the faithful to embrace their crosses and live for God, especially through receiving the sacrament of reconciliation this Lent.
“Our participation in Christ’s Passion and Resurrection,” Archbishop Vigneron wrote, “is what we prepare for during the coming season of Lent.”
Lent is an opportunity to die to self and to accept the many graces the Lord offers, he emphasized. One way through which the faithful can die to self is through the healing sacrament of confession.
“There is no sin so damaging that it cannot be forgiven by a humble and contrite confession, there is no wound so painful that it cannot be healed by the wounds of Jesus, the Divine Physician,” he wrote. “There is no soul so lost that it cannot repent, turn back, seek God’s mercy, and be welcomed again into God’s household at the threshold of hope that is the confessional door.”
Christ’s sacrifice on the cross restored man’s friendship with God, and the faithful can participate in this sacrifice at Mass, he added. Through participating and communion with the Eucharistic Lord, the faithful become part of Jesus’s perfect self-offering, he wrote.
“At the Mass, we do not passively observe how God reconciles us to himself in Christ Jesus,” Archbishop Vigneron explained. “Rather, in the liturgy, we are made partakers and active participants in Christ’s sacrifice.”
He then invited the faithful to examine their hearts and discern areas of sin in need of conversion, and urged them to willingly accept their personal sacrifices this liturgical season in order to grow closer to the Lord.
“This Lent, it is my prayer that you might accept both the Cross and the Resurrection in your life,” Archbishop Vigneron wrote, “as well as any particular sacrifice Jesus has called you to make so that you will be more closely united with his sacrifice.”
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