With Lent quickly approaching, here are a couple of handy links from Zenit - my favorite source for ecclesial primary documents:

• Pope Benedict XVI's message for Lent. A must-read, this message's surprising focus is on development. Benedict subtly addresses a severe temptation during Lent: to turn completely inward. Of course, Lent is a time for personal prayer, purification and mortification through meditation on the paschal mysteries in preparation for the celebration of these same mysteries in the Easter Triduum. Yet in this message the Pope calls us out of ourselves and reminds us that a necessary fruit of this purification is "to become conformed to [Christ's] 'gaze,'" that, the Holy Father says, "impels us to affirm the true content of this "complete humanism" that, according to Paul VI, consists in the "fully-rounded development of the whole man and of all men."

  Like I said, a must-read.

• The Pope's address before praying the Angelus with the faithful this past Sunday.
  A wonderful pre-Lent pep-talk. Benedict reminds us to face Lent with a "new spirit of the one who has found in Jesus and his paschal mystery the meaning of life, and now feels that everything must make reference to him." Our Lenten penance should proceed from a positive love for God and desire for Him to be the center of our life rather than a dour, negative attitude of duty, which he dubs the "old spirit."

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