Prayer of the Day
Ash Wednesday
February 18th, 2015
Today we begin the holy season of Lent. It is a time of repentance, contrition and conversion, a season during which we are invited to examine our lives, and seek out God’s mercy, grace and forgiveness. When we read Jesus’ words, our attention is drawn to those things that we should do, but do not do well at all like fasting and almsgiving, Lent is certainly a time to take stock of our attitudes to these things.
However, Jesus is not calling us just to get our lives in order, but to rekindle our personal prayer life. Several times he tells us to withdraw to a private place, where we can be alone to pray to our Heavenly Father. In the middle of today’s Gospel reading, Matthew places the perfect prayer – the Our Father. God wants us to pray and will teach us how to pray. He meets us in the present moment, wherever we are. Loving God is then our task, our project, our goal and our raison d’étre. As St. Benedict Joseph Labre once said; “To love God, you need three hearts; – a heart of fire for him, – a warm heart towards our neighbour and – a heart of bronze towards ourselves.”