Today's readings are here: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/022712.cfm
The first reading begins with God commanding, "Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy" and ends with God commanding, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself". These two commands are connected in that God's holiness is the perfection of his love, so we are being holy like God when we love our neighbor as ourself.
In the Gospel, Jesus raises the importance of this holiness/love of neighbor to a new level by saying that the verdict of the final judgment, and thus our eternal destiny, will be based on how we loved or did not love him, which was evidenced by our performing, or failure to perform, the corporal works of mercy: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, and visiting the imprisoned.
Lent is about, first, realizing that Christ loves the Father perfectly and shows it by the way he loves us, his neighbors: he feeds our hungry and thirsty souls with his body and blood; he welcomes us Gentile strangers into his covenant family; he clothes the shame of our nakedness with his righteousness; he heals our sickness of sin; and he visits us in our imprisonment to Satan.
Second, Lent is about repenting of the ways we have not loved God and neighbor, so that we can, in gratitude, begin to love God as he deserves and our neighbor for the sake of God.
May God help us!
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