For daily readings, see http://www.usccb.org/nab/021308.shtml
A humbled, contrite heart O God, you will not spurn. It is important to remember that God does not need our prayers, our fasting and our almsgiving this Lent. He needs our contrite hearts, hearts ready to respond to the paschal mystery of his only Son. We do not pray more, fast more or give more this Lent to earn God’s favor, these are merely the first steps – the means necessary if we are to have any chance of rending our hearts to God. It is the rending of our hearts, not our garments, which pleases God, and He was pleased with the heartfelt repentance of the Ninevites in today’s first reading.
We spend forty days now praying, fasting and giving alms, as much as is necessary for us to enter into the sacred Triduum at the end of Lent with all our hearts. The more evil a generation is, the less readily it will recognize the presence of God, and the more readily it will demand irrefutable proof that erases the significance of human freedom before they will bow before the Almighty. Such an evil generation that seeks a sign from above is incapable of recognizing the sign of Jonah, for this sign is from below. God humbles himself beyond our imagination, and puts himself into the hands of sinners, and this is the definitive and everlasting sign of his love - the sign of the cross. No sign from above of God’s almighty power can surpass this revelation on the cross of God as love, and as the one who desires not the death of the sinner but that He might be converted and live. May we be humble enough through our Lenten penance to recognize the sign of Jonah, and to conform our lives to the mystery of the cross.
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