LENTEN THOUGHTS (day 1 - Ash Wednesday)

I AM with You: Lessons of Hope and Courage - Loyola Press

Ash Wednesday - DAY 1 OF LENT

God’s design was to live in harmony with people, where all our needs would be taken care of, and we would have happiness because we would be close to God and in accordance with God's will.

But evil, known by most as Satan, and the misuse of our own free will that God has given us, distorted all that. And so, we have the crumbling, the fracturing, the division, the sorrow, the sadness, the sickness, and the death that we know today.

And yet, God still challenges us to imagine. God's Son will return to judge the living and the dead, ushering in a new heaven and a new earth—Jesus' Second Coming. We can imagine that! We long for that. We hope for that, especially now as we’re going through difficulties. We imagine, we pray, we trust, we hope, we have faith that God will set everything right.

Jesus told us so.

—Loyola Press