March 18, 2025 // Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent // Optional Memorial of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Read the Word // Open your Bible to today’s First Reading: Isaiah 1:10, 16-20

Reflect on the Word // 

As a teenager, slowly and humbly crawling back into her faith, there was a part of my heart where I desired to rebel against any “rules” in our faith. I didn’t want to feel chained to what felt like a checklist of all the things I needed to do in order to be holy, such as what the prophet Isaiah writes in today’s First Reading: “Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good. Make justice your aim: redress the wronged” (Isaiah 1:16-17). I saw the strictures and commands of our faith as a set of unrealistic expectations placed upon myself.  It was easy for me to get caught in the trap of comparison, especially when looking at the lives of other Catholic women on social media. 

Why is it so easy for her, but not for me?  I could never be holy. 

I assumed that it was up to me to become holy, that I had to grasp and control a story that isn’t even mine to control. For my story belongs to the Lord. Friend, we cannot become holy without Him and without realizing His desire to transform our hearts. You don’t have to grasp or control. You can allow Him to do the heavy lifting and submit to the practices He asks of us through the Church. Sister Miriam James Heidland from the SOLT community spoke at a Blessed is She retreat that I attended in  2023, and I remember her words, “We are not shamed into a conversion, but we are loved into one.” 

Sister, He will never shame you into transformation, but He will love you into it. Not that we shouldn’t put in any effort or ignore our shortcomings, but we should know that our littleness is where He wants to reveal His goodness, mercy, and redemption. His love purifies our hearts, and only by His love will our hearts be transformed. 

Relate to the Lord // Notice the Lord’s gentle and reassuring tone, imagine His loving and pure gaze upon you as He says, “Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18).