O Lord… I Am Afflicted and Poor" (Ps 86:1)

Today's Mass Readings

As we close these opening days of Lent and enter into the first full week of this penitential season we reflect in a particular way on our sinfulness and on penance for it.

In today’s first reading (Is 58:9b-14), Isaiah teaches us well that penance is a verb. It is something that we do. It takes some effort. It often manifests itself in actions of charity toward others – “bestow your bread on the hungry,” “honor [the Sabbath] by not following your ways, seeking your own interests, or speaking with malice” (Isaiah 58:10, 13). Entering into practices of self-denial in Lent should make us more charitable people, if not, something is wrong with our spirit. Since we know from the gospels, that when we do the sorts of things that Isaiah is talking about to our brothers and sisters, we have done them to Christ, then we understand more fully that these penitential practices make reparations for our sinfulness to others and to God. And Isaiah tells us that God will respond: “Then the LORD will guide you always and give you plenty even on the parched land. He will renew your strength, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails.” (Isaiah 58:11). We must make that difficult step of good penance first.

It is troubling, at times, to stare our own sinfulness, our own human weakness, in the face because when we do, we become aware that many of our brothers and sisters, who we are so quick to call slimy, monstrous, and evil have really actualized more fully a potential that is in all of us as humans. A deep recognition of human failings and human sinfulness comes complete with the recognition, “I am a sinner… and that’s really frightening.” But that’s not the end. Such reflection must also come with a deep belonging-ness to Jesus. As we hear in Luke’s gospel, He did “not come to call the righteous to repentance but sinners” (Luke 5:32); He is the physician for our souls. He has identified Himself with us, all of us, sinners who repent. Those who are too righteous to repent have, on the other hand, convinced themselves that they don’t need salvation.

Today, let us take a moment to reflect upon the person who we find most appalling, most monstrous and then let us pray for the grace this Lent to see him/her as a fellow sinner and child of God. For it was the Pharisees’ inability to do this that led Jesus to excoriate them. Let this moment of reflection, then, conclude with a prayer for this person’s good. We know from the gospel, that this will make us more like God, too.

- Tim Gabrielli