As the season of Lent approaches, communities worldwide prepare for reflection, repentance, and renewal. Lent, a significant period in the Christian liturgical calendar, invites believers to deepen their spiritual lives through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. This year, Caritas Penang is spearheading efforts to make Lent 2025 a meaningful journey for all, with initiatives to foster compassion, community, and change through volunteerism.

Embracing the Spirit of Lent
Following the Jubilee Year, Caritas Penang embraces HOPE as the spirit of this Lent. Many look forward to Lent as a season to encounter God’s presence through practising the three elements of Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. The HOPE we shall have for this Lent is that we will be able to transform our lives through God’s Word and through the richness of the Scriptures that encourage challenge, confront and comfort – Pope Francis. In general, every Lent we discover ways to root out sin in our lives, penance and face our spiritual struggles, but Pope Francis says the Hope of Lent lies in what God does. Anchoring our hope in Christ draws us closer to God’s Will than our own will. Listening to God’s call for us shows us the path we must take, and we have the choice to choose. Lent season is a chance to challenge us to face ourselves step out of our comfort zone and go on to do what Jesus teaches us to do. To have hope for ourselves and to bring hope to others.

In collaboration with parishes, Caritas Penang has collected some stories from four parishes of their social mission projects. The four stories intend to give volunteers hope to continue God’s work and motivate more volunteers to join the social mission. From the stories, we get to see how those parishes initiated projects and community practices with hope and are still going on, all the parishes in one way or another are doing something that is keeping the social mission of the Catholic Church alive; to keep it going and to do with oneness precisely to be a Synodal Church we have to nurture the spirituality of mission, to listen, discern and act like Jesus. The Lenten guide also consists of suggestions and ideas for practices we could initiate during Lent.