ASH WEDNESDAY - 2022

LENT 2022

DAILY HOLY MASS READINGS

If today you hear his voice,

harden not your hearts. PS 95:8

JOEL 2:12-18 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

We have lost all sense of sin and shame, Lord, the world has lost its moral compass and is under the delusion that we have autonomy over our lives. This is the insidious lie propagated by the agents of the great deceiver and sheer ignorance of our identity as children of God makes it easy for many to swallow this lie. 

The Church gives us this period in the liturgical calendar to take stock of our lives, the nature of sin and its consequences which is separation from God and death to the soul, as well as the debt we owe You for the price that You paid to restore our relationship with Him.     

This Lent, after everything that the world has gone through in recent years, I pray that the vast majority understands that without You we can do nothing. May we make the heartfelt cry of the prophet Joel our own during this entire season of Lent and we return to You with fasting, weeping, mourning, true repentance, contrition, deep sorrow for our sins and receive from You forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation. 

Spare us O Lord from God's just wrath. Take pity on us and save us. 

2 CORINTHIANS 5:20-6:2 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

Chaos reigns in our world in every area of our human existence. We beg You to send Your Spirit once again just as You did at the dawn of creation and to speak the Eternal Word as You did so that order, light and wisdom may prevail once again in our world and the peace that You came to give us will reign among nations and peoples. 

St. Paul reminds us that we are Your ambassadors and each of us is sent out into the world to proclaim the Good News. Sin and death no longer have victory - You took the weight of our sins on Yourself, nailed them to the Cross, and paid the price for our iniquity by suffering, dying, receiving the just sentence that was ours and reconciling us once again the God. The Father received You as the pure Victim, the Lamb of God without stain or blemish, as the only acceptable and pleasing Sacrifice, and through Your merits, all who believe in You receive immeasurable grace. We are pardoned, healed, reconciled and our relationship as children of God is restored.

This Lent, grant us the grace to return to You with an undivided heart. May we understand that great debt of love we owe You and may we resolve to put sin away from us completely and walk purposefully in the way of Truth until we reach our journey's end. 

MATTHEW 6:1-6,16-18 ©

My Soul's Beloved,

We are immature, insecure Christians this is why we make a dog and pony show of our good work. We let everyone know that we pray, we fast, we give alms and we relish the praise we receive. We look down on those who do not give as much as we do or are not seen in the church as much as we are. We take note of their shortcomings and compare them we our perceived virtue and gloat that we are better than them. Your Word today is a harsh reminder to all hypocrites about the true nature of giving, of prayer, of fasting and it would do us well to be guided by them in all our spiritual practices.

God cannot be deceived and if we are stupid enough to believe that we can then we are in for a very rude awakening when the time comes for the separation of the sheep from the goats and we find ourselves on the side of the goats as we have already received and gloried in worldly praise as our reward for any good we may have done.

Every disciple is called to have an inner, secret spiritual life, a hidden sanctuary within one's soul where You alone are our witness to any little act of kindness, any sacrifice, and all our prayers of praise, worship, thanksgiving, supplication, and intercession are witnessed by You alone and all our sole motivation for prayer, fasting, and almsgiving must be because we love You and all we say and do must be only because we love You.