When Our Lord was about to begin His public ministry, He had St. John proclaim the necessity of penance: "Do penance: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." He Himself declared that He had come to call sinners to repentance: "I came not to call the just, but sinners to penance." This virtue is so necessary, that unless we do penance we shall perish: "Except you do penance, you shall all likewise perish."

Those words of Christ are solemn, most serious, and are not to be taken lightly. The Church considers the gravity of those words and like a good Mother, she has designated certain days and weeks as times for penance. How well she knows that if we left it to ourselves individually, we would do nothing. Yes, I mean nothing, in the vast majority of cases.

The Church wants us to die to ourselves so we can find our real selves, our deeper, hidden life in Christ. She reminds us of our vocation to a holy life by means of a holy season. She sounds the alarm on Ash Wednesday: "Do penance. . . ..Remember, that you are dust and to dust you will return." In solemn tones she reminds us of the grave - there is the end of our earthly possessions, our earthly glory, our earthly ambitions. But she does not stop at that cold, cruel reminder.

That is one side of the invitation. The other side of the invitation carries the words of St. Paul: "For me to live is Christ." Lent has really one objective: "It is no longer I that live but Christ who lives in me."

Lent is not something negative. It is not a time when we merely give up drinking and smoking, cut out dancing and night-clubbing, turn off the television and bury ourselves alive. These are not the goals we are seeking. If, "No thanks, I don’t smoke during Lent," is our goal, then we have made Lent into a mockery.

Our Lenten practices must be more positive than negative. Daily Mass and Communion will be much better for us than giving up sweets. Reading one good, solid spiritual book this Lent will be much better than staying away from every movie. However, there is nothing wrong with self-denial.

You may be familiar with the story about the successful businessman who finally decided that he had better return to his religious duties. After thinking it over, he decided that his sins were so great that only the Pope could absolve him. So he went to Rome and the Holy Father agreed to hear his confession.

After the confession, the Holy Father said to him: "You have broken every one of God’s Commandments, and I must give you a very salutary penance. For you penance, I want you to go to Mass every morning for six months." But, the man remonstrated: "Holy Father, I am a very busy businessman. I won’t have time to go to Mass every morning. Will you please give me some other penance."

"All right, said the Holy Father, "for your penance I ask you to fast every day for three months." Again the man pleaded that his hard life in the business world would not permit such a severe penance. Then the Holy Father said: "For your penance you may read one chapter from the Holy Bible each day for a year."

This time the businessman pleaded that he had poor eye-sight and could not read in the evening under artificial light. The Holy Father then handed him a ring and said: "For your penance I want you to wear this ring and every day I want you to read the inscription on it: MOMENTO MORI—-remember death.

The man took the ring and read the inscription every day. Within a few months his neighbors noticed that the businessman went to Mass on weekdays, and were told by his servant that he fasted three days every week, and that he read a chapter of the Bible every day.

There is a lesson for all of us in this story, and it shows the true meaning of Lent: "In all thy works, O Man, remember thy last end, and thou shall never sin."