IntroductionThe Wondrous Loop There are two moments that matter. One is when you know that your one and only life is
absolutely valuable and alive. The other is when you know your life, as presently lived, is
entirely pointless and empty. You need both of them to keep you going in the right direction. Lent is about both. The first such moment gives you energy and joy by connecting you with your ultimate Source and Ground. The second gives you limits and boundaries, and a proper humility, so you keep seeking the Source and Ground and not just your small self.
The paradox, of course, is that you find yourself anyway: your Big Self in God and your little self in you. God loves them both. Saint Teresa of Avila summed it up when she said, “We find God in ourselves, and we find ourselves in God.” With such a maxim, she did not likely need a therapist. Yet, I would add, that it is always much more like being found than actually finding anything! As Paul put it, “then I shall know as fully as I am known” (1 Corinthians 13:12).
So during these forty days of Lent, let’s allow ourselves to be known! All the way through. Nothing to hide from, in ourselves, from ourselves, or from God. Allow yourself to be fully known, and you will know what you need to know. This is my desire in writing these meditations. It is in this wondrous loop of divine disclosure, our own now safe self-disclosure, and a healing mutual acceptance—that we grow “in wisdom, maturity, and grace” (Luke 2:40). In fact, that is the way that all love happens, and the only way we grow at all.
I will begin each meditation with a single title or phrase that for me sums up the point. One-liners can often be remembered more than paragraphs. Then I will reverse the common process, and offer you the meditation first—and then key passages from the readings afterward. I hope that will allow you to read the precise Scripture with clarity, insight—and new desire! I have found that in the spiritual life, less is always more. Long, or too many Scriptures, just keep us from needed focus and impact. We do not know where to look and so end up looking nowhere, and then leaving in a muddle of pious confusion. A little bit of God’s Word goes a long way. To do this best, I will compose a legitimate Scripture translation from several sources, usually a combination of the
New American Bible, the
Jerusalem Bible, and sometimes with some inspiration from
The Message translation of Eugene Peterson, which is often brilliant. You will not be disappointed or misled. If this leads you to check out the Scripture passage with your own translation, that is even better.
Since many Christians tend to read or recite prayers, instead of praying from the heart, I am deliberately not going to compose full prayers for you each day. I will offer you an invitation to your own self-disclosure to the Holy One—a “starter prayer,” as it were. I want you to get inside this wondrous loop of divine dialogue for yourself, and in your own conscious and sincere words.
These meditations on the daily readings of Lent are not for the sake of mere information, or even for academia (although I hope it will satisfy both), but for the sake of our transformation into our original “image and likeness,” which is, we are told, the very image of God (Genesis 1:26). What always and finally matters for all of us is
the Encounter itself!
Copyright © 2026 by Richard Rohr. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
