Daybreaks: Daily Reflections for Lent & Easter

by Ron Rolheiser, OMI

“The Lord will guide you always
and satisfy your thirst in parched places,
will give strength to your bones
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a flowing spring whose waters never fail.”

(ISAIAH 58:11)

“As human beings, we’re weak and lack the moral strength to always act according to what’s best in us. Sometimes we just succumb to temptation, to weakness. Sin needs no explanation beyond this: we’re human!

Also, sometimes people are caught in sinful situations they didn’t create. They’ve been abused, made to live in sinful circumstances not of their own choosing, are victims of human trafficking, are victims of unjust familial or social situations, or are deeply wounded in other ways that keep them from actualizing their own moral faculties. In situations like this, wrong action is a question of survival, not of free choice. In these cases, generally, beneath an understandable hardened, calloused surface lies a still-innocent heart that clearly knows its need for God’s mercy. There is such a thing as honest sin.  

There’s also sin that’s dishonest, rationalized, that’s forever buffered by a phony pride that can’t admit its own sinfulness. The result then, most often, is a hardened, bitter, judgmental soul. When sin is rationalized, bitterness will invariably follow, accompanied by hatred toward the kine of virtue from which it has fallen. When we rationalize, our moral DNA will not let itself be fooled. It reacts and punishes us by having us hate ourselves. And when someone hates himself, that hatred will issue forth in a hatred of others and, more particularly, in a hatred of the exact virtue from which he has fallen. 
 

[Offering up] false pride for Lent and for all time helps us find ourselves as weak and sinful, which can soften our hearts, make us humble, and open us to receive God’s mercy” (6).   

We reach prayer’s goal when our minds and wills unite with God; it’s a loving communion – union with the Trinity and His Creation. The Eucharist is the highest form of love; a prayer when we’re most united with the Lord.