Bulletin of the Eucharistic Crusade for Children in Australia
Dear Crusaders and Friends,
The Christmas season has come to an end and the season of Septuagesima has taken its place. Soon, it will be the season of Lent again. Then at the end of a long Lent, we will celebrate Easter. Seasons of joy; seasons of penance. Some of us might wish that we could always be celebrating joyful feasts in the Church’s calendar. But those who wish that all could be joy forget that we live in a valley of tears. After Adam and Eve sinned, sin, sickness, and death entered into our world. Things were so bad after the sin of our first parents that even heaven was closed; nobody was able to go and be with God.
Now, if you had to solve such a problem of sin, sickness, death, and the gates of heaven being locked up, what would you try? Would you try to ignore all the bad stuff? Would you try to run away from all the bad stuff? Would you try to have so many nice things that nothing bad could come near you? I wonder what you would try.
Well, God Himself was thinking of how to fix the problem of Adam’s sin. He decided that the only way to fix the problem was to freely choose the pains and sufferings and death that Adam and Eve had brought into the world. That’s right, instead of avoiding all the bad things or ignoring them, He choose to send His only begotten Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ to suffer the consequences of sin. And because He suffered and died, Jesus won for us the chance to go to heaven, the place of unending joy.
See how Jesus loves you. See how good He has been to you. Don’t you want to love Him back? Don’t you want to be good to Him? Don’t you want to follow Him in his sufferings? I am sure that your answer is the same as all the saints: yes, yes, yes!
Can you be surprised then that Holy Mother Church gives us a season of Lent? Where we can focus on imitating Our Suffering Saviour by the performance of some penance. Holy Mother Church knows that it is by following the sufferings of Jesus that we can gain the joys of Easter. Those who do no penance during Lent have no real joy when Easter comes. But, those who are generous in their penances always receive a great joy when Easter arrives.
My dear boys and girls, use this Lent wisely to follow Our Eucharistic King in performing penances in conformity with third word of our motto: SACRIFICE.
Yours in Jesus & Mary,
Fr. Benjamin Campbell
