Friday of the First Week of Lent
February 23, 2024
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022324.cfm
If the wicked man turns away from all the sins he committed,
if he keeps all my statutes and does what is right and just,
he shall surely live, he shall not die….…. And if the virtuous man turns from the path of virtue to do evil,
Exodus 18:21;24
the same kind of abominable things that the wicked man does,
can he do this and still live?
None of his virtuous deeds shall be remembered,
because he has broken faith and committed sin;
because of this, he shall die.
Sometimes our life, with its many challenges and mysteries, can seem like an amusement ride spinning in the middle of the universe. We can be turned this way and that by forces such as our doubts, fears, disappointments, shocks, failures, unmet expectations, and the many figments of our imaginations. Oddly enough, these tumbling realities are the very places we meet God to Whom we desire to turn our lives no matter how our circumstances turn.
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy:
We might use this simple prayer to turn our hearts to God in every moment.
Dear God, in all things, I wish to turn my heart to You.
Receive my desire and steady me in your Love.
Poetry: Thee, God, I come from, to Thee I go – Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
Thee, God, I come from, to thee go,
All day long I like fountain flow
From thy hand out, swayed about
Mote-like in thy mighty glow.
What I know of thee I bless,
As acknowledging thy stress
On my being and as seeing
Something of thy holiness.
Once I turned from thee and hid,
Bound on what thou hadst forbid;
Sow the wind I would; I sinned:
I repent of what I did.
Bad I am, but yet thy child.
Father, be thou reconciled.
Spare thou me, since I see
With thy might that thou art mild.
I have life before me still
And thy purpose to fulfil;
Yea a debt to pay thee yet:
Help me, sir, and so I will.
But thou bidst, and just thou art,
Me shew mercy from my heart
Towards my brother, every other
Man my mate and counterpart.
Music: Turn to Me – written by John Foley, SJ
Lavish Mercy 