” “Accepting God’s love "is not enough": "One must return such love and commit oneself to communicate it to other people". These are the words of Benedict XVI in his message for Lent 2007, called "They will turn to look He whom they pierced through". The Holy Father invited people to look "with confidence to Jesus’ pierced chest from which ‘blood and water’ gush out", "the symbols of the sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist". "Through the Lenten walk, reminiscent of our Baptism says the Pope , we are urged to come out of ourselves and open up in confident abandon to the merciful embrace of the Father", but we must also live Lent "as a ‘Eucharistic’ time, in which, as we welcome Jesus’ love, we learn to spread it around ourselves in all of our gestures and words". In other words, "contemplating ‘He who they pierced through’ will push us to open our hearts to our neighbours, acknowledging the wounds inflicted to the dignity of the human being"; in particular, "it will push us to fight any form of contempt of life and exploitation of the person and to alleviate the tragedies of so many people’s loneliness and desertion". Hence Benedict XVI’s invitation: "May Lent be for every Christian a renewed experience of God’s love, given us in Christ, a love that one day we will have to give back’ to our neighbours, especially to those who suffer most and are most in need".” “
