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Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. . . . Do you not realize that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?" (Romans 2:1,4b) I want to share a reflection from a recent Forward Day by Day on the above reading. The author is responding to the notion that I often hear from folks who do not go to church. And that is, they consider themselves spiritual (or even Christian) yet do not see a need to be part of a faith community. They usually express themselves as believing in a loving and forgiving God and trying to live a good life. "If occasionally I slip and do the wrong thing, God understands. God doesn't expect me to be perfect." To that, the author says the following: When I hear people say that, I tell them that it is true to a point. God is indeed loving and forgiving, and God does sympathize with our weakness (see Hebrews 4:14-16). But that doesn't mean we can go blithely about our business as if all were well. All is not well, and God does expect us to be perfect. God's kindness is meant to lead not to a self-satisfied complacency, but to repentance and a life of holiness. God knows we cannot live a life of holiness alone or unaided. Jesus Christ is the strength we need to do what we otherwise could not do, to be what we otherwise could not be. We live in Christ. Day by day, we become more like Christ and his holiness becomes our holiness. A careless acceptance of what we are now is not part of it. 1 Our season of Lent is a perfect time to be less careless about our expectations of ourselves and to recognize that it is only through Christ that we even begin to approach a state of holiness. While it may seem to be an impossible goal to attain, holiness is still the place that we should seek to be. To strive for anything less would be to sell God short and to diminish what he can accomplish in our lives. I pray for a holy and introspective Lent as we prepare together for the Joy of the Resurrection.
May God bless us and keep us always.
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