Thursday in the First Week of Lent
Lent is a time for penance, but it is also a time for audacity. So often, our sins are because we do not trust God, and so decide to take matters into our own hands. If we want to get to the root cause of our sins, we need to deepen our trust in God. We need the audacity to ask Him for whatever we need. If we do not have this audacious trust in God, sooner or later our sins will crop right back up.
Lent can be a time to develop this audacious trust. We can begin by realizing that we have far less power than we think, so that we have to trust in God. Reflecting on our mortality and weakness (as we do at the start of every Lent), we realize what taking matters into our own hands will get us. Then as we see how God has already helped us even with our limitations, we can keep on asking God for help, and even throw ourselves into new situations where we know we must rely on God to bear fruit. Lent is a time for those new situations. Lent is a time for audacity.