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40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Friday after Ash Wednesday, 16 February 2024 Isaiah 58:1-9 + + + Matthew 9:14-15
Thank you, dear Father for this lovely season of Lent when everything is in hue of violets representing the future, the imagination and dreams, while spiritually calming our emotions to attain spiritual enlightenment while at the same time keeping us grounded in you, O God, our very first love.
Give us the courage in Christ Jesus your Son to confront our very selves, to accept who we really are before you minus all the pretensions and alibis and excuses: forgive us, Lord because very often we look so highly of ourselves, unconsciously or consciously playing god, keeping ourselves as standard and measure of what is right and proper, even of truth; worst, many times, we demand you to conform to us than we conforming to you.
Thus says the Lord God: Cry out full-throated and unsparingly, lift up your voice like a trumpet blast; tell my people their wickedness, and the house of Jacob their sins. They seek me day after day, and desire to know my ways, like a nation that has done what is just and not abandoned the law of their God; they ask me to declare what is due them, pleased to gain access to God.
Isaiah 58:1-2
Let us be your prophets especially in this age when we no longer fast nor abstain, no longer praying individually and communally, so contented with online Masses, so that we have forgotten not only you, Father but even those around us, both those nearest to us in the family circle and those outside our margins; Father, in this age with so much emphasis on individual rights, we have forgotten about others: we have refused to see each others plight and condition in life because we have bloated our egos, has failed to look at the mirror to confront our own dirt and smudges, questioning everyone even you, O Lord, except our very selves. Amen.
