“These 40 days are for all of us to leave behind the slavery of sin and walk towards the freedom of the encounter with the Risen Christ”. Pope Francis said this at today’s audience, speaking off the cuff about the Lenten season that begins today. “Every step, every effort, every trial, every fall and every new beginning, all of this makes sense only within the saving plan of God, who wants His people to have life and not death, joy and not pain”, he said, making a comparison between the Exodus and the time that prepares us for Easter. “Jesus’ Passover is His exodus, by which He opened for us the way to full, eternal and blessed life”, Pope Francis recalled. However, “in order to open that way, that path for us, Jesus had to strip himself of His glory, to humble Himself, to become obedient until death, death on the Cross. Jesus opened for us the way to eternal life at the cost of His blood, and thanks to Him, we are saved from the slavery of sin”. “But this does not mean that He has done everything and that we ought to do nothing, that He has passed through the Cross and we go to Heaven by carriage”, the Pontiff admonished. “Not at all! Our salvation is certainly His gift to us, but since it is a love story, it demands our love, our ‘yes’ and our contribution to His love, as Mary, our Mother, and all the saints after her show us”.