With Ash Wednesday, Lent returns: an important time - a gift, an opportunity - that is given to us again this year. A favorable time to seek what dwells in our hearts.
Let us become aware of this opportunity and ask ourselves immediately: an opportunity to do what? How do we want to live Lent 2022?

“Return to me with all your heart” (Joel 2:12)

How beautiful this expression is! How beautiful it is to hear that God asks us to return to him with all our hearts, that is, with our whole being! 
For this reason, during Lent the Church proposes “conversion” to us, a change of direction: a change in mentality and in our way of acting.
Ash Wednesday, the solemn beginning of Lent, is meant precisely to urge us toward conversion of heart, a return to God. The imposition of ashes, in fact, with the two formulas - “Repent and believe in the Gospel,” or “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” - has a dual meaning: the first refers to inner change, conversion, and penance, while the second recalls the precariousness of the human condition. 
Conversion is not an abstract change or merely a change in our thoughts; it must involve our inner life, our hearts, and our whole person. True conversion means, above all, that we must return to the Lord with greater love and, consequently, that we must also return to our brothers and sisters with greater love.
We must “work” and “commit ourselves” to conversion in order truly to celebrate Easter.
Where do we start? What might a path of conversion look like?
We often declare that we want to change, but then we do not know where to begin.

“Live Christ”

Lent means freeing our hearts from what is vain, so that our desire—that is, our thirst for love—may find its answer in the One who can fulfill it. We are therefore called to belong to Christ more intensely and to conform our lives to his.
We must “live Christ”: with him, for him, in him. It is not impossible if we are constant in personal and communal prayer, if we practice fasting, and if we live in charity.
Prayer, fasting, and charity are essential conditions for being truthful about ourselves. 
These three Lenten practices are simple, humble, practical, and everyone can put them into practice. They help us to “live Christ,” even though they may seem like a renunciation. They are connected to one another, are practiced together, and each one supports the others. At first it may seem difficult and, impatient as we are, we will not immediately understand their meaning. We need to practice them in order to understand them, and little by little they will bear abundant fruits of conversion.
And so, this Lent, let us set aside time each day for prayer and spiritual reading. It could be meditating on a book, a psalm, or the Gospel of the day…

We always experience fasting negatively: not eating, not doing. Yet there is a beautiful expression from one of the Fathers of the Church, Saint John Chrysostom, which shows us the way of those called to fast: “In addition to fasting with your mouth, you must fast from saying anything that could hurt another person, because what good is it not to eat meat if you devour your brother?” Let us therefore commit ourselves to addressing others with words that are good, true, beautiful, and kind.

Furthermore, let us choose one person who is poor or disadvantaged and visit or contact them weekly. Charity, in fact, means above all sharing, as far as we can, in the other person's life, just as Christ shared in ours by becoming human.

The exercise of desire

Saint Augustine writes: “Our life is an exercise in desire. Holy desire will be all the more effective the more we tear the roots of vanity from our desires. To be filled, we must first empty ourselves. You must be filled with goodness, and therefore you must free yourself from evil. The vessel must be emptied of what it contained; indeed, it must be cleaned, perhaps with effort and commitment, if necessary, so that it may be fit to receive something.”
During this time, we should not fail to ask ourselves how frequently we receive the sacrament of Reconciliation. It is here that we learn to look at our lives with humble truth, to recognize the misery that dwells within them, and to savor the sweetness and tenderness of that merciful embrace that only the Lord is capable of giving. There can be no journey of conversion and holiness without regular sacramental Confession.
This Lent, let us rediscover the sacrament of Confession and, in this case too, set aside time - at least every two weeks - to receive sacramental forgiveness. Whenever possible, let us attend weekday Mass, the source and summit of our entire life of faith. 

“What is conversion? It is asking the Lord for the grace not to speak ill of others, not to criticize, not to gossip, and to love everyone. It is a grace that the Lord gives us. This is what it means to convert the heart,” Pope Francis tells us.
During Lent, let us commit ourselves to conversion by looking directly to Christ and his face. Let us converse with him. Let us get to know him better, becoming more fully his. For it is he who saves and redeems us.