Wednesday of the First Week of Lent
“Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed.” ~ Jonah 3:4
“It seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” ~ Luke 11:29
A week ago, it was Ash Wednesday - time flies fast! So many things can happen and can be done in one week. And speaking of things that can or need to be done, I wonder how well we are doing with our commitments during this Lent. It is okay to not see daily wins because we still have more days for Lent to continue or to start our commitments.
In the Bible, we encounter numbers that are significant to our faith such as the number forty (40) which is central to Lent. This number is so important during this time, and it is mentioned in today’s readings. Every year, we have an opportunity of forty days to become closer to God, to reconcile ourselves with Him. Yet, these forty days require us to not only have the willingness to be close to God, but we also need to act by taking the steps of our own journey. In the First Reading, God gave forty days to Nineveh, which even made the king rethink his actions and have an encounter with ashes as we did last Wednesday. Since that day, what have we done to become closer to God?
As in the case of Nineveh, we need to change some things in our lives that are destroying our relationship with God. To begin our reconciliation depends on us. Perhaps, we can start by listening more to God’s voice through our prayers, by remembering to cherish the people and things around us, or by offering our time in service of others. Let’s take this Lent as the sign Jesus mentioned in today’s Gospel. Let's let this Lent bring us to pray more fervently and more frequently. Let’s take this new chance to listen closely to God’s voice and begin to do more things that resemble our faith as Christians.
Be safe!
Airam Aguasvivas D.
Class 2024, Honors and CSTEP Student
SFC Mission Student Assistant
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete