February 25, 2026 // Wednesday of the First Week in Lent
Read the Word // Open your Bible to today’s Psalm: Psalm 51:3-4, 12-13, 18-19
Reflect on the Word //
My mom looked at me with a furrowed brow and skeptical gaze. We were talking about marriage and commitment, and she wasn’t worried about my boyfriend staying faithful to me, but about me staying faithful to him. She knew how much work a relationship took and that I had a tendency to be impulsive and flighty. She wondered if I would have the fortitude to be faithful during the good and bad times.
Part of me was insulted, but another part of me knew it was a valid concern from a mother’s heart. However, that boyfriend is now my husband of twenty-six years, and I have remained faithful and steadfast because I was motivated by love and strengthened by God’s grace.
In today’s Responsorial Psalm, we pray, “A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me” (Psalm 51:10). This is my constant prayer because I know I can be self-serving and fickle in my relationship with God if I am not careful.
When I close my eyes and pray, I imagine Jesus looking at me. I smile at Him but then notice something over his shoulder and I’m distracted and look away from Him. With a gentle touch on my chin, Jesus gently turns my head back to Him. He knows me and my tendencies. He never tires of turning my gaze back to Him. As I grow in my relationship with our Lord, my desire to keep my gaze on Him grows, also motivated by love and strengthened by His grace.
This Lent is the perfect time to examine what things are hindering us from having a clean heart that desires God above all else. Spending time with our Lord in prayer, reading Scripture, and receiving the Sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist will draw us closer to God and serve to renew a steadfast spirit within us. Let this be the moment that we allow Jesus to turn our gaze back to Him.
Relate to the Lord // Spend some time in imaginative prayer today simply looking at Jesus. What do you see? What do you feel? What do you say to each other?
Bobbi Rol is a wife and mama living on the Monterey Bay in California with her husband, daughter (also a Blessed Is She writer), and three teen boys. When she is not driving her kids to school, practices, and games, she can be found by the ocean, catching a movie, or collecting journals and stationery. She was a contributing author to Gift: Study on the Eucharist, And Hay Became Holy, and our children’s devotional prayer book, Rise Up. Find out more about her at https://www.instagram.com/
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