The time of Lent is a time for prayer and reflection on your life. It’s time to stand in the truth. The first truth that I need to be aware of is that God loves me with infinite, unconditional love and that His love for me will never change!
Only when I stand “eye to eye” with God’s love I can look at myself and my life in all truth. There is a lot of good and beauty in me, but also many weaknesses and sins … Looking at my imperfection, I must not take my eyes away from God’s love, from His mercy, from Jesus, who died on the cross for all my sin and has already forgiven me.
St. Faustina wrote: “The knowledge of my own misery allows me, at the same time, to know the immensity of Your mercy. In my own
interior life, I am looking with one eye at the abyss of my misery and baseness, and with the other, at the abyss of Your mercy, O God.” (Diary 56).
When I look at the image of Merciful Jesus and see His forgiving, merciful look, I can learn to look at myself and at other people in the same way.
If a God who penetrates me and knows the whole truth about me, a God who is “Thrice Holy, and detests the smallest sin” (Diary 1728) loves me and invariably wraps his mercy – do I have any reason for that, not to love the others and not look at them with love?
“Help me, O Lord, that my eyes may be merciful, so that I may never suspect or judge from appearances, but look for what is beautiful in my neighbors’ souls and come to their rescue. (Diary 163).
To stand face to face with another person who thinks, sees, feels differently than I, who hurts me – looking at this person with love is not easy! Let it be a challenge and a task for each of us for this first week of Lent.
Courage
