Today is Shrove Tuesday, the day to indulge before Ash Wednesday and Lent, the season of repentance and, hopefully, reconciliation. There’s an enormous difference between the two because we repent alone, but reconciliation takes two parties.
How do you reconcile if the other person or other side does not want to do so? To quote the King of Siam, “Is a puzzlement.” Indeed, it is. But now on Shrove Tuesday we find an excuse to eat that piece of chocolate or laskiaipulla, Finnish coffee bread buns cut in half stuffed with whipped cream and raspberry or lingonberry preserves in the middle.
Tomorrow we will think about the temptations we face in everyday life and whether it is possible to overcome them. In spite of how much we try, we are flawed and imperfect creatures, which is the reason for repentance. Perhaps the real question for us is how we repent.
Prayer for the Day
Turn to us, O Holy One, and be gracious to us,
For we are afflicted with our failings and sins;
We know that the Lenten season will be upon us,
We do not want to give up what is important but avoid harsh truths.
But you, O God, call us to shake off the pride that infects our souls,
And turn to you who are the only who can heal us.
In the name of the One who understands us all,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
These are two things: sin and repentance. Sin is a wound; repentance is a medicine. Just as there are for the body wounds and medicines, so for the soul are sins and repentance.
- John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople (347-407)
You won’t like hearing this, but sometimes you can’t fix what you broke. Sometimes you just have to live with it.”
- Rachel Hartman, American writer, from Tess of the Road
Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me!
“Come,” my heart says, “seek God’s face!” Your face, O Lord, do I seek.
Do not hide your face from me.
Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help.
Do not cast me off, do not forsake me, O God of my rescue.
Psalm 27: 7-9