Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Ash Wednesday

God’s mercy is greater than our sins. There is an awareness of sin that does not lead to God but rather to self-preoccupation. Our temptation is to be so impressed by our sins and our failings and so overwhelmed by our lack of generosity that we get stuck in paralyzing guilt. It is the guilt that says, 'I am too sinful to deserve God’s mercy.' It is the guilt that leads to introspection instead of directing our eyes to God. It is the guilt that has become an idol and therefore a form of pride.

Lent is a time to break down this idol and to direct our attention to our loving Lord. The question is: 'Are we like Judas, who was so overcome by his sin that he could not believe in God’s mercy . . . or are we like Peter who returned to his Lord with repentance and cried bitterly for his sins?' The season of Lent, during which winter and spring struggle with each other for dominance, helps us in a special way to cry out for God’s mercy.

Henri Nouwen A Cry For Mercy: Prayers from the Genesee

(Hat-tip to Gartenfische)

 

The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
     a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

(Psalm 51.17)

 

The Lord is gracious and merciful,
     slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The Lord is good to all,
     and his compassion is over all that he has made.

(Psalm 145.8-9)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the hat tip!

I enjoy reading your blog.

Kelly Joyce Neff said...

this is lovely. It is so difficul for us to walk the line between true contrition and self-obsessed guilt, and the culture often encourages the latter.
But how many times did Jesus say, 'your sins are forgiven you. Go and sin no more'? Do we really believe that? Any sort of self-obsessed guilt would say otherwise. Setting ourselves above God in that manner is a rather soul-destroying thing, it seems to me, for finite and fallible creatures. Lucifer seems to have borne a terrible price for well-intended hubris. And there but for the grace of God, go we....

Anonymous said...

I like thinking of winter and spring struggling.

Jan said...

LOL--there's synchronicity, as I posted the same quote from Garten, too.

St Edwards Blog said...

This is beautiful- I know I am here late, but having just found this great blog.

Seeing as my friends Jan and Gartenfische are here, I should have known!

Fran

Mike Farley said...

Hallo Fran! Very good to see you over here wearing your St. Edwards hat...

Mike