“To promote full development, our ‘glance’ on man must face that of God”. This was stated by Benedict XVI in his message for Lent 2006, which will start on March 1st with the penitential liturgy of Ash Wednesday. “The issue of development” in the light of the “touched glance of God” which “never fails to rest on men and peoples” is the subject chosen by the Pope for the message, out today, accompanied by a passage from the Gospels “As he saw the crowds, Jesus felt pity for them”. For the Pope, “Lent is the privileged time of the inner pilgrimage to He who is the source of mercy”; a pilgrimage “in which He leads us Himself”, “He watches over us and holds us”, because, states the Pope, “even today, the Lord listens to the cries of the crowds who are starved for joy, peace, love”. Yet, “even in the bleakness of poverty, loneliness, violence and hunger “, continues Benedict XVI, by quoting John Paul II, “there is a ‘divine limit to evil’, and such limit is mercy “, a perspective in which Benedict XVI conducts his reflections. “The Church he goes on knows that, to promote full development, our ‘glance’ on man must face that of Christ. By no means can one separate the response to the material and social needs of men from the fulfilment of the deep needs of their hearts”.
