God the Father and Ash Wednesday

In the Gospel today we hear about our Father who sees in secret when we fast, when we give alms, and when we pray. So many in the world believe God to be angry and judgmental. A God ready to condemn us at a moments notice. This of course is the height and the depth of our selfcenteredness. Our own deep disatisfaction with ourselves and our lives we apply to God or attribute to God. Thus we believe that there is no way we could be pleasing to Him. Therefore if we can never please Him, then why try. We are living a LIE and serving ourselves or some other God, but not the God of Revelation. The God of Revelation is our Father who sees in secret and Loves us so much that He sent His only Son to be our Savior. Lent is a time in which we are called to abandon the LIE by fasting and prayer and almsgiving in order to live in the TRUTH of our Father's LOVE. His LOVE that is revealed in the life, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, the Savior of the world. We are preparing to celebrate the mystery of our Catholic Faith. The very foundation of that Faith is our Father's LOVE. Revealed most clearly in the Paschal Mystery. What a joy it is then to engage in the disciplins of Lent. For by these we enter into intimate union with our Father who sees in secret. In the secret of our hearts He encourages us to gaze upon His Son. To immitate His Son. To meditate upon His Suffering, Crucified Son. To experience the loss of His Son. That we may rejoice in the Resurrection of His Son and the GIFT of Eternal life He offers to us in His Son. In this, in His Son Jesus He is revealed. His Mercy, His Love for each of us is revealed. As Christmas reminds us, when we adore the Christ Child, the visible Son of God, we are caught up in the love of the invisible God, our Father whom we cannot see. So too in Lent as we meditate on the mysteries of the life death and ressurection of Jesus, the Father's Love who sees in secret is manifest in our lives. This Lent open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and the intecession of our Lady let us walk with Jesus beneath the gaze of our Father knowing that He sees in secret. Knowing that He Loves us, and that we are pleasing to Him. He is our Father, He is the God of Revelation.