Lent, again!

I received an e-mail last evening, the subject of which was- no kidding- Realize total and absolute power. It was like getting an e-mail from the devil (too bad he is far more subtle than the ham-fisted spammer). I suppose it caught my attention more than usual because I preached on the First Sunday of Lent. It also reminded me of something I read earlier yesterday, a masterful paraphrase of a passage from C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce: "any besetting lust, whether the lust be lust for power, or acclaim, or the satisfactions of the flesh . . . any sin that a man ultimately refuses to do without will damn him." I would suppose, to logically complete the thought, it damns him because he prefers his sin to God. This made me mindful of what a lovely prayer the Act of Contrition is:

My God,
I am sorry for my sins with all my heart.
In choosing to do wrong and failing to do good,
I have sinned against You, whom I should love above all things.
I firmly intend,
with Your help,
to do penance,
to sin no more,
and to avoid whatever leads me to sin.
Our savior Jesus Christ suffered and died for us. In His name my God have mercy.
Amen.

May we strive to love God, who "loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins." Therefore, "if God so loved us, we also must love one another (1 Jn 4,10-11). It is only by loving God first and most that we are able to love our neighbor as we should.