Through fasting, almsgiving and prayer, he said that “the Church proposes in a special way during the Lenten Season…suitable means for us to become conformed to this 'gaze.'“
The Pope likewise pointed to the “examples of the saints and the long history of the Church's missionary activity provide invaluable indications of the most effective ways to support development.”
Integral Salvation
Pope Benedict exhorted faithful to live in solidarity with the poor and oppressed, pointing out that there is a potential for disintegration of charity in the current culture.
He said that charitable, social actions, “have to include a recognition of the central role of authentic religious values in responding to man's deepest concerns, and in supplying the ethical motivation for his personal and social responsibilities.”
“These are the criteria”, he said, “by which Christians should assess the political programs of their leaders.”
“Very often,” the Pope pointed out, “when having to address grave problems, they have thought that they should first improve this world and only afterwards turn their minds to the next. The temptation was to believe that, in the face of urgent needs, the first imperative was to change external structures. The consequence, for some, was that Christianity became a kind of moralism, 'believing' was replaced with 'doing.'“
He again turned to the words of John Paul II, who said that “The temptation today is to reduce Christianity to merely human wisdom, a pseudo-science of well-being. In our heavily secularized world, a gradual secularization of salvation has taken place, so that people strive for the good of man, but man who is truncated...We know, however, that Jesus came to bring integral salvation.”
"It is this integral salvation”, Benedict wrote, “that Lent puts before us, pointing towards
the victory of Christ over every evil that oppresses us.”
Ultimately, the Pope told faithful that in an era of widespread poverty as well as unprecedented global interdependence, “it is clear that no economic, social, or political project can replace that gift of self to another through which charity is expressed.”