Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the period of Lent, a time given us by the Church to actively reflect on our relationship with God and with one another. The goal of this lengthened reflection period (forty days) is the opportunity to repair those relationships that are broken even as we seek to improve those that are dwindling. We attain this goal when, like the prodigal son, we come to our senses and seek a  returnto God and to the people from whom we have estranged ourselves.  
In the First Reading, God, speaking through the Prophet Joel, calls on the people to make a genuine return to the Lord (whole-hearted return). It was a call that was motivated by the desire of the Lord to once again journey with his people in honor of the covenant God had made with them. As had become the norm, the people had disregarded their obligation to the covenant and followed the desires of their own hearts. And even as time and again God pleaded with them to make amends and come back to him, they only managed a half-hearted return. For while externally the people were observed to be showing remorse for their actions by fasting and mourning, in the depths of their hearts, they remained estranged from God. Their hearts were still full of pride, selfishness, arrogance, disobedience to the law of God, and disregard for the welfare of their fellow men and women. The right repentance that would please the Lord and make their return acceptable is one that focuses on the heart (and as such genuine): “Rend your hearts instead of your garments,” quips the Lord.
The Lord is interested in the “rendering” of the hearts because it is in the depths of our hearts that the Lord speaks with us. Just as it is with our hearts that we listen to the life-giving words of the Lord, it is also in our hearts that we can decide to close our ears to the Lord. When we close the ears of our hearts to the Lord, we disengage ourselves from the relationship that we have with the Lord. When we close the ears of our hearts to the Lord, we lose the friendship that ought to exist between God and his creatures. We rend our hearts by distancing ourselves from attitudes and behaviors that lead us into sin. We rend our hearts when we let go of the things that clutter our lives and which make it impossible for us to love our brothers and sisters as we should. It is only when we “rend” our hearts that we can hear the Lord calling out to us to come back to him. For the Lord is not happy when we stay estranged from him. We have to come back to the Lord because only then can we realize the fullness of life that is God’s gift to us. 
The three  ‘observances/practices’of Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving that have come to characterize this period of Lent are given us by the Church to help and guide us as we make this return. Prayer is our only means of communication with the Lord. If we have to repair or maintain our relationship, communication is of paramount importance. For in prayer not only to we pour out our hearts to the Lord, but we also get a chance to listen to what the Lord has to say. Lenten fasting should be seen as broader than abstinence from food or other forms of activities that excite our senses. Lenten fasting is geared towards having control over the appetites (drives) that, if left unchecked, can lead to us harming others or even ourselves. Lenten fast is about putting the desires of the body and mind under control. Almsgiving is one of the ways through which we live our Christian virtue of charity. It is the practical way of heeding the call of the Lord to love our brothers and sisters. Lenten practice of almsgiving should therefore not be undertaken as a means of doing ‘penance’ but rather as an expression of our Christian identity. Almsgiving and other forms of charity remind us of the web of relationship in which God has inserted us. For we can only take care of our relationship with the Lord when we are aware of who we are and what is expected of us.