‘Return to the heart,’ Pope Francis preaches at Ash Wednesday Mass
February 15, 2024
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CWN Editor's Note: At 5:00 PM on Ash Wednesday, Pope Francis presided at Mass in the Basilica of Saint Sabina in Rome, following the traditional penitential procession from the Church of St. Anselm on the Aventine.
Christ’s call to “go to your room” to pray (Matthew 6:4) “means returning to the heart, as the prophet Joel admonishes,” the Pope preached. “Life is not a play; Lent invites us to come down from the stage and return to the heart, to the reality of who we are: a return to the heart and the truth.”
“Precisely there, where so many fears, feelings of guilt and sin are lurking, precisely there the Lord has descended in order to heal and cleanse you,” the Pope continued. “Let us enter into our inner chamber: there the Lord dwells, there our frailty is accepted and we are loved unconditionally.”
“Let us return to God with all our heart,” he added. “During these weeks of Lent, let us make space for the prayer of silent adoration, in which we experience the presence of the Lord, like Moses, like Elijah, like Mary, like Jesus ... Brothers and sisters, let us not be afraid to strip ourselves of worldly trappings and return to the heart, returning to what is essential.”
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