February 19, 2026
Thursday after Ash Wednesday
Fr. Ulise Zarza, Vicar of the Holy Land
Dear brothers and sisters, May the Lord give you Peace!
I am Fr. Ulise Zarza, Custodial Vicar, and I speak to you from Jerusalem. In the still austere silence of the days that follow Ash Wednesday, the Word immediately leads us to the heart of Lent.
In the Gospel we have heard, Luke 9,22,25, Jesus speaks without compromise: "The Son of Man must suffer greatly, be rejected, be killed and rise on the third day". And, almost without leaving time to breathe, he adds: "If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me".
It is not an easy discourse. It is not a consoling invitation according to the criteria of the world. It is as if Jesus, at the beginning of the Lenten journey, wanted to tell us, "I do not deceive you. The path of love passes through the cross". That "must" is not the burden of a blind destiny, but the necessity of love. Christ does not undergo the Passion, he chooses it, because only in this way can he reach us completely, even in our most hidden wounds.
Saint Augustine of Hippo, contemplating the Passion, affirmed: "The Passion of the Lord is our hope and our glory, there is the sacrament of the blood by which we were redeemed", Sermo 96, 1. For Augustine the cross is not a scandal to be avoided, but the place where hope is born.
Looking at Christ crucified, we understand that no suffering is without meaning. Then Jesus makes a decisive step, from his cross to ours, and this passage also marks our discipleship: "If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me".
The Lord does not oblige nor constrain. He proposes, cf. John Chrysostom, In Math. Hom. 56. But what he proposes is radical: to deny oneself. It does not mean to despise oneself, but to stop living as if we were the center of the universe. It means allowing God to be God, and allowing others to have space in our heart.
Lent thus becomes a school of freedom. To fast is to tell our instinct that it does not command. To pray is to acknowledge that we need God. To give alms is to remember that we are not masters, but stewards. These are small gestures that chip away at selfishness and open paths of light.
Saint Leo the Great expresses it forcefully: "There is no participation in Christ’s victory without participation in his Passion", Sermo 39, 3. One does not arrive at Easter without passing through Good Friday. Yet it is precisely by passing through it with Christ that we discover that the cross is not the final word.
There is a detail in Luke’s Gospel that touches concrete life: "take up his cross daily", the expression "daily" emphasizes the readiness to follow Jesus not only in the hour of persecution, but also in everyday life, therefore it does not speak of extraordinary heroic gestures, but of daily fidelity. The cross of each day may be an unrecognized patience, a forgiveness that costs, a duty carried out with love, a suffering lived without hardening the heart. It is there that discipleship and fidelity to the Lord are played out.
Finally, Jesus poses the decisive question: "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet lose or forfeit himself?". It is a question that unmasks our illusions. We may accumulate successes, approval, securities, but if we lose our soul, what remains? Lent brings us back to what is essential: to save true life, the life that is born from self giving.
Brothers and sisters, at the beginning of this journey, let us not be afraid of the cross. Accepted with Christ, it does not crush us, but transforms our existence. In the wood of the cross the bud of the resurrection is already hidden. And every small daily yes prepares in us the joy of Easter.
Peace and all good from the Holy Land!
