40 Shades of Lent by Fr. Nicanor F. Lalog II Monday, Second Week in Lent, 17 March 2025 Daniel 9:4-10 + + + Luke 6:36-38
Lord Jesus Christ, on this first working day of Second Week in Lent, give me the grace to be shamefaced; give me the sense of embarrassment, the sense of sinfulness, a sense of humanity. Yes, Lord, we have been so callous and numb, so thick-faced as in "kapal"!
“Lord, great and awesome god, you who keep your merciful covenant toward those who love you and observe your commandments! We have sinned, been wicked and done evil; we have rebelled and departed from your commandments and your laws. We have not obeyed your servants the prophets… Justice, O Lord, is on your side; we are shamefaced even to this day… O Lord, we are shamefaced, like our kings, our princes, and our fathers for having sinned against you” (Daniel 9:4-7, 8).
Do not let us sink deeper into sin and misery like your people in the time of your Prophet Daniel, Lord, for us to be shamefaced in admitting our sins, our treachery against you; our nation is so divided these days with no one having any sense of shame at all with the decadence we have sank into like excessive profanities, rampant fake news, overt personalisms, too much politics without any regard at all with what is right and wrong, with what is evil and what is good and worst of all, without any respect for one another and for life in general; many of us have discarded your image and likeness in us as we have lost our sense of sinfulness and shame.
Let us be shamefaced like Daniel, Jesus; mahiya naman kami, Lord! Before we can be merciful with others, let us be shamefaced first; let us be shamefaced, Jesus, so we can be generous with others for without any shame at all like with what is happening now in our country, we are sinking deeper into the pit of destruction. Amen.
