Mercy.
- Abbey Dupuy
- Feb 18
- 3 min read
Ash Wednesday is here again, and with it the beginning of another Lent. Whether this is your first or your tenth or your fortieth or your eightieth Lent, it seems each one takes on a character of its own.
As this day approaches, I am never sure what to expect. There have been years where I've laid out big, ambitious plans for personal growth or spiritual reading. There have been years where my plans were smaller...but I almost always have plans. I have traditionally approached this time as a period in which I need to be about some extra purpose (along with the "extra" that comes this time of year in the work of liturgy and church music).
This year, Ash Wednesday is a little different in that it arrived before I was ready for it to get here. Even as late as this morning, I wasn't quite sure what I was going to "do" for Lent. I am still figuring it out, waiting for the Spirit to issue an invitation or give me a clue what I might need to take up or let go in this season.
Still, as I rehearsed alone this morning in the empty nave of the Cathedral for the noon Mass, chanting the Introit from the Graduale Romanum, I felt something clicking into place in my heart like the tumblers in a lock, lining up to allow the door to swing open.
Misereris omnium, Domine, et nihil odisti eorum fecisti...
Your mercy extends to all things, O Lord, and you despise none of the things you have made...
The text of the Introit goes on to say that God overlooks our sins "for the sake of repentance...You offer them your pardon, because you are the Lord our God."
Reflecting on this text today, I had a new realization. This–this unfinished not-knowing, this perpetual uncertainty, this ongoing figuring out who we are and what we're meant to do–this is what it means to be human. Lent isn't a time to get away from our humanity or to somehow leave behind all our flaws in an extraordinary episode of faith-on-steroids that has us leaping over small buildings.
Instead, it's a time to look honestly and directly at what it means that we are human and that God is God. Our not-being-God means that we are going to keep screwing up, despite our best efforts...and God's being God means that God already knows this. God is everlastingly patient with our humanity (to the thousandth generation, as Deuteronomy says). God made us and does not despise our shortcomings. God is going to keep applying mercy where it is needed, over and over again, as often as we require it.
Does this mean we shouldn't try to get better at the things we struggle with? No, of course not. We have to try, and we do. It does mean, however, that God's identity as God means that he will keep on forgiving us and offering that mercy that we so badly need.
We do need mercy, now and all the time, because we are human.
God offers us mercy, because God is God.
Lent - this Lent, right now- is the time where can freely admit that this is the reality of our relationship with God and let ourselves lean into it a little, on purpose.
Not to escape our weaknesses or will them away, but to recognize that despite those flaws, we are worthy of love and mercy.
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