Numbers in the Bible are mainly symbolic. The three, the seven, the twelve, the forty… Forty days it flooded on the earth in the time of Noah; Forty years the people of Israel walked through the desert until they reached the Promised Land; Moses spent forty days on the mountain to receive the tables of the Covenant; The prophet Elijah walked for forty days without eating or drinking until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God; Forty days Jesus was in the desert where he was tempted by the devil.
The number forty is linked to a chronological time. This means that it has a beginning and an end. And in that temporality, we discover two elements that are the order of the day in the business world: objectives and hope. The results are subject to the tension of deadlines, but also the hope of their possibility. Chronological time marks our personal and professional history, which is why human beings need to remember times: birthdays, anniversaries, new years… The Church, made up of men and women who update the events of Jesus Christ in their stories, in the history of humanity, also celebrates the times in its liturgical life. And now it is time for Lent, forty days to set goals full of hope.
But the number forty is also linked to a place that, more than geographical, is theological: the desert. And in that theological place we discover two experiences very close to businessmen and managers: loneliness and temptation. Every manager, every businessman, knows about the loneliness of the office, about failed projects, about errors in decision-making. Every businessman, every manager, has had to face the temptation of hopelessness, of abandonment, of the easy path, of forgetting his deepest principles.
And it is by crossing the desert that the people of Israel find the Promised Land, where the prophet Elijah meets God, where Jesus conquers temptations. Because in the darkness of the night, the thirst of the desert lights the way for human beings in their search for the Source, for God.
Through three proposals, the Church invites us as Christian businessmen and managers to materialize objectives in a time that is, mainly, one of transformation (and, therefore, of hope):
- Dialogue in the company: it makes no sense to talk to God, whom we do not see, if we do not talk to the people around us in our daily lives.
- Austerity: there is no room for a life of waste in the midst of a world subjected to so much suffering and so much poverty. Austerity is the door that reveals to us not only the value of things, but also which things are truly important.
- Solidarity: the actions that a company carries out for the good of humanity are the incentive for the humanization of that company.
Pope Francis invites us to live these next few days in the key of Lent:
Even when our daily commitments force us to remain where we usually find ourselves, living an often repetitive and sometimes boring daily life, in Lent we are invited to “climb a high mountain” together with Jesus, to live with the Holy People of “God a particular experience of asceticism”
Message from Pope Francis for Lent, 2023
Dionisio Blasco España is Territorial Delegate of Social Business Action in the Diocese of Malaga
