Mental healthcare professionals will tell you that constantly looking back on the past leads to depression and constantly looking toward the future causes anxiety. God’s grace is not in the future. God’s grace is not in the past. “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present” (Bill Keane).
What moment do we find ourselves in right now? We are on the cusp of the holy season of Lent. We are standing on the edge of the precipice, looking at the spiritual disciplines that lie before us, getting ready to sink or swim.
Our second reading says: “When this which is corruptible clothes itself with incorruptibility and this which is mortal clothes itself with immortality, then the word that is written shall come about: Death is swallowed up in victory.” What exactly does that mean? We must allow ourselves to be changed, to be transformed. We who were once corruptible, must now flee from sinfulness. We who were once dead in our sins can be brought to everlasting life in Christ’s forgiveness.
And who is the victor over death? It is Christ who swallows it up through His death. God could simply say the word and we would all be saved, but He chose to send His Son and He chose to require our cooperation. “No disciple is superior to the teacher; but when fully trained, every disciple will be like his teacher.”
And so it was that God Almighty sent the most unfathomable present to us here and now, our very own Teacher. His grace is with us in this moment, leading, guiding and loving. Let us receive this gift and open our hearts to all the lessons and graces He has in store for us today.
Tami Urcia, Diocesan Publications