“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”
~ St. Teresa of Calcutta
Lent can be a very disturbing season to those who truly attempt to keep it. If we immerse ourselves into the season, we work quite diligently to look deep within ourselves in order to identify the things that hinder us from as close a relationship with the Lord as possible. The goal of Lent is to identify those obstacles to our faith so that we can rid ourselves of them.
However, there are times that, in the process of identifying the obstacles to our faith, we become hypercritical of ourselves. We believe ourselves to be failures. When that happens, we often quit working on our Lenten journey. After all, who wants to feel like a failure?
Just like New Year’s resolutions, once people quit working on Lent, they are not prone to begin again. Feeling that they have failed, they tell themselves that they will just wait until next year. This year is over. There is no way to begin again. Maybe next year will be better.
Mother Teresa would tell us that thought is far from true. The only day that matters is this day. Yesterday is gone. If we failed on our Lenten resolutions yesterday, that is in the past. It does us no good to dwell on it. There is no way to get the past back. Tomorrow is not yet here. There is no reason to worry about what might await us tomorrow.
But today? Ah, therein lies the miracle. Today is all that we have. We can begin anew without worrying about the failures of our past or the problems of the future. The best gift that we can give to our God is the gift of today.
FAITH ACTION: You may have kept Lent quite well. You might have been flagging in your resolve. Either way, renew yourself in your Lenten resolutions today. Begin. Again.