The 40 days of this year's Lenten season started this past week, on Ash Wednesday, as faithful Christians all over the world began the spiritual commemoration of the 40 days that Jesus spent in the desert, when he was tempted by Satan.
While Lent is known for being a time of penance and preparation ahead of the celebration of Easter, it's also considered a time of God's abundant mercy, said Catholic author and international speaker Katie McGrady.
"Lent is a season of mercy," said McGrady, based in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
She holds a degree in theology from University of Dallas.
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"We sometimes turn it into a season of personal punishment so as to seem holy, but any penance we take on, any prayer practice we add to our routine and any generous gifts we make are meant to draw us closer to God," she said.
"And he is the God of mercy."
"And so in Lent, to be closer to God is to be closer to his mercy, which he longs to lavish upon us."
Lent is observed by some, but not all, Christian denominations.
For the first Sunday of Lent, Catholic churches around the world will be proclaiming Psalm 51, which has the refrain, "Be merciful, O Lord, for we have sinned."
Sin, along with death and taxes, are "three things inevitable in this life," said McGrady.
"We don't like to dwell on any of them, quite frankly, even though perhaps we should," she said.
Those who dwell on death should "do well to think of how we can live life to the full so as to greet death like an old friend when it arrives," said McGrady.
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When it comes to taxes, McGrady noted that paying them on time "makes it least a little less surprising."
Sin, however, even in its "seeming inevitability," is best thought of as "something worth resisting" — rather than "something to dwell on," she said.
"Sin exists," said McGrady, "because broken and fallen people exist. But mercy exists all the more — a loving God longs to approach us with the gift of forgiveness."
Like taxes and death, "his mercy, swift and complete and all-encompassing, is assured," she said.
God's mercy, however, "is not just a wiping clean of the slate, as if God instantly forgets how we've fallen and failed."
She went on, "The mercy of God is an outpouring of his perfect and abundant love, a compassion so grand there’s nothing to compare it to in this world."
Said McGrady, "It is mysterious [and] hard to accept for ourselves because we often feel unworthy of God’s mercy."
She said it's "even harder still [for us] to give [it] to others, especially if we imagine others are undeserving also."
Despite this, humanity is still desperate for God's mercy, she said, comparing this mercy to water on a hot day or a blanket during a cold night.
"God’s abundant mercy quenches our thirst and warms our cold sinner’s heart," she said.
"It is what we long for, what we need and what heals us in ways beyond our understanding."
When praying Psalm 51, Christians who are crying out, "Be merciful, O Lord," know they need God's mercy, said McGrady — as sin is "an inevitable reality."
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Sin, however, is not the only inevitability.
"So, too, is the mercy he will give us," said McGrady.
