Monday of the 2nd Week of Lent
Dan 9:4-10
Lk 6:36-38
To us, Lord, the look of shame belongs, to our kings, our princes, our ancestors, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God mercy and pardon belong, because we have betrayed him, and have not listened to the voice of the Lord our God nor followed the laws he has given us through his servants the prophets.
I was doomscrolling one afternoon (there goes my Lenten resolution) when I came across a picture with the words “Stop giving up chocolate. Start giving up the sin you keep protecting.” While giving up something that we like a lot (like snacks) can be difficult, it is still far easier to give those up than to face down our sins and break free of them. Today’s first reading resonates because it talks about how we keep on sinning, despite the best efforts of the prophets. We somehow cannot help ourselves and fall back into vices again and again. We are often discouraged by this, and some are driven to despair. However, no matter how we feel about this, this struggle is here to stay.
Free will is something we all want, but on occasion, I find myself wondering if it isn’t better to not have free will so that God’s will can be done on earth real quick with little to no drama. If people did not have free will, we would not choose to sin, because sinning feels better and satisfies us. In going through some English Literature texts with my older daughter, we talked about how animals and humans differ in our compulsion to act. Animals are driven by a primal need for survival (food, shelter, reproduction) so anything they do in the pursuit of these cannot be seen as ‘wrong’ simply because there is no other viable option for them. In the same vein, animals will not act out of malice or evil intent, only out of necessity. They do not have free will like humans do, or at least, not to the same degree.
What have humans done with our free will? Other than using it to gain the basic needs for survival, we have also used it to choose greed, violence, lust, selfishness, and laziness. We have used it to choose to harm fellow humans. Like in the first reading, we have acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from God’s commandments. We have made ourselves our own gods and done as we pleased. We no longer heed God’s will, but heed our own. We put ourselves first, ahead of everyone else, and at everyone else’s expense.
Would it not be better if we did not have this choice? Would it be easier and less troublesome if we all could only do as we are meant to do? Yes it would, but it would be meaningless — for us, and for others. If there is no agency, we can be replaced by machines. It is in the choosing that we grow. During our family prayer this evening, we talked about how we could find happiness when we choose to be good to others. I thought that was an interesting question: why do we need to find that happiness? Is being good to others not a happy thing in itself? Not always. Being good to others is not simply being nice to nice people. It also means to do good and do the right thing for anyone, including the people you dislike. My daughters put it across quite simply. We can find happiness in doing good because that is what God wants us to do, and in doing so, we also become better versions of ourselves. The struggle is not only real, it is necessary for our own growth.
When we put God first, and do as he wants us to, everyone benefits equally. It may take a while to see this positive growth in ourselves, especially when the benefits are not material. But it is there, slowly and surely. When we fall deeper into sin, we get desensitised to it and become worse and worse. Likewise, when we rise to virtue, we become better and better at it. We have always struggled — learning to walk, to talk, to do maths, to do your job, the list goes on. We also struggle to become better at the things we do. If there is no struggle, there is no growth. If there is no opposite force that we resist, we stagnate and even backslide. We need that struggle to keep on the path of virtue God has laid out for us. We need to learn to struggle also, to get back on that path when we stray from it.
As humans, we are allowed to choose. We should be choosing good over evil. However, the lure of evil is strong. The good news is that evil can be overcome. Sin and death has been overcome. Sometimes, Lent feels like an entire lifetime instead of just a liturgical season. The struggle and the growth, the sin and the repentance — this continues outside of Lent, and it continues to the day we die. I am not gonna lie — the struggle is tiring, and we all already have our own battles and wounds to contend with that can make that struggle harder. But, we must always remember that we are relying on God’s strength and not on our own; and by this, we can give up our sins.
Anything worth doing is worth doing well, and is worth the fight. We are in a struggle to prepare our souls for eternity. How we are going to spend that eternity depends on the state of our souls, and that, in turn, depends on how we choose to live this life. Do we choose to turn away from God, or do we choose to obey his commandments, no matter the struggle?
Brothers and sisters in Christ, Lent is as good a time as any to start purging our souls. Look deep inside you, pray for the Holy Spirit for discernment, identify what you need to clean out from your heart. To praying, add fasting and almsgiving. There will be a noticeable change if you keep at it.
Our God is a God of mercy and forgiveness. No matter how badly we have fallen, as long as we are truly repentant, he will show his mercy.
(Today’s OXYGEN by Felicia Zou)
Prayer: Dear Lord, we pray for the courage and strength to push through our struggles to become better versions of ourselves. We pray for the perseverance and faith to keep going, especially in the most difficult of times.
Thanksgiving: Dear Lord, we thank You for Your unending love and patience for us, even when we fall so many times.
OXYGEN 
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