Lenten Reflection: Grace in the Present Moment

"We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does; so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is."
-Blaise Pascal, Pensée 47

Lent is a time for mindfulness of the present. The physical sensations of hunger or other unfulfilled desires bring us back from the musings of the mind to the reality of existence here and now, reminding us that we depend on God for our being at every moment and that there is grace being offered in this moment for us to receive.

Let us not be content to merely consider what saints we could be with God's grace but strive to accept the grace as it is given.