Monday of the Second Week

Reflection

In today’s reading from Daniel, there are three important points that Daniel is making:

First, he is praising God for being loving, loyal, and merciful toward us. As Catholics, some of our main goals are to love God with our whole heart and soul and to try to do His will, regardless of what humanly burdens our fallibility brings.

The second point Daniel makes is that we knowingly depart from God’s will. He has given us laws to follow yet our daily actions fall short of pleasing God. In the reading, Daniel is confessing these faults for us and owning up to the fact that we are fallible. Also, he is alluding to the fact that God deserves better by saying, “Yours, O Lord, our God, are compassion and forgiveness…and we paid no heed to your command.”

The third point that Daniel makes is probably the most important. “We are shamefaced even to this day…we are shamefaced, like our kings, our princes, and our fathers, for having sinned against you.” Daniel repeats twice that we are shameful and sorry for what we have done. We have knowingly failed to “live by the law [the Lord] gave us” and for this we are “shamefaced.”

In short, during this Lenten season, we should strive to be better than we have been so that we can come closer to God by strengthening our relationship with Him. We do so by following the instructions given in the Gospel: stop judging and condemning and instead, forgive and give so that we can have the same done unto us!

Prayer
Merciful Lord, forgive us for our wrongdoings this Lenten season and help us begin anew by striving to become closer to You. Help us to open our eyes to see what great things You have done for us so that we can do the same to You and others as we go about our daily lives.

Abbey  Beach, ’21

Scripture

First Reading: Daniel 9:4b-10

Psalm 79:8-9, 11, 13

Gospel: Luke 6:36-38

Daily Scripture readings can be found online at the USCCB website