Come unto Me

‘Lent is no time to sit at ease in Sion (Amos vi. 1) content with a few additional pious practices and sermon tasting, nor are we meant to turn our grace inwardly upon ourselves, wasting this precious season in useless laments upon the past or raking over the dustheap of our sins in the vain belief that this is penitence. We have confessed our sins, we have made our act of contrition, we have heard the Divine word of absolution, word which accomplishes that which it says, and now we are called to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance (Luke iii. 8), to arise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light (Eph. v. 14), to lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and to run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith (Heb. xii. 1, 2).
 
Come unto Me. It is our one need; all our victory over temptation, all our progress in virtue, all our hope of eternal life lies in this alone. There is no more deep-seated root of our failures than that which tempts us to discouragement and anger with ourselves, which would persuade us to remain in the far country lamenting our evil state instead of acting upon the word God puts within our hearts, I will arise and go to my Father (Luke xv. 18). There is no greater foolishness than to yield to the pride which tells us that we must make ourselves fit to come to God, that the way of return is long and difficult, that we need anything more than to fling ourselves upon the Divine Mercy with but one word, “My Jesus, I am sorry”’. 

​Dom Bede Frost OSB, 1877-1961