Ash Wednesday

One of the most influential writers for my spiritual growth is Father Henri J. M. Nouwen. His book, The Way of the Heart, has touched me deeply. And I have read it more times than I recall right now. And I've shared it with a number of others, including my father, who never marked what he read but in this case actually placed a few little dots beside passages that spoke to him (as they had to me).

All of the above to say: I have been reading Nouwen again of late. One that I finished just last week is titled Show Me the Way. It is a devotional based on daily Lenten readings. Having finished it so recently, it occurred to me to read it again as it was intended to be read: one devotional per day during this season.

My intention in connection with these daily readings to give some of my thought in response to what Nouwen says and what God seems to be saying to me through the priest's words.

One statement today caused me to pause: "Our temptation is to be so impressed by our sins and failings ... that we get stuck in a paralyzing guilt. It is the guilt that says: 'I am too sinful to deserve God's mercy.'"

It sounds almost masochistic to say we are impressed by our sins and we don't deserve God's mercy. Well, on the one hand, we don't deserve God's mercy. If we deserved it, it wouldn't be mercy. On the other hand, we enter the realm of heresy to think we have done anything that God's mercy cannot address. Satan enjoys getting me to fixate on how I have failed God. The problem is: I have failed God. But that's not the point. the point is, that we have all failed him. But the greater point is: God forgives our sins and failings. And the still greater point is: God's unconditional love floods over those sins and failings.

Nouwen goes on to contrast Judas and Peter: "Are we like Judas, who was so overcome by his sin that he could not believe in God's mercy any longer and hanged himself, or are we like Peter who returned to his Lord with repentance and cried bitterly for his sins?"

The time of crying bitterly for my sins is past--for me. Now has come the time to become an overcomer!