The First Sunday in Lent AD 2025

A few days ago, I was talking to young people who have decided to try to make the most of Lent this year. One of their concerns was what to do if they were to break their Lenten promises at some point. "Will the whole Lent be ruined then?" I encouraged them, assuring them that this was certainly not the case, because as long as God gives us another day, even a single new moment, we can change the attitude of our hearts and, if we have fallen, with His help, rise again and return to Him: “For He saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”

However, knowing this, we must take care not to become careless. Saint Paul admonishes us: “Receive not the grace of God in vain!” Those who receive the grace of God grace in vain are those who think that God only wants to justify us in Christ, but not to make us just and righteous. However, this is not true. On the contrary, Saint Paul writes: “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”

So the doctrine of justification by grace is not in the least contradictory to the notion that we must be righteous before God. If we want to continue living the same way as before after receiving God’s grace, we would be ungrateful and unspeakably unjust to God, who has loved us so much that He has given His only begotten Son for us. “For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light!”