Second Sunday in Lent
Our preparation for rising to a newness of life at Easter means that we learn more and more during Lent how to please God by what we do. During Lent, we are not asked to give up just bad habits, we need to give up sin—to fight against temptation and to carry out the good deeds that God desires to see in His children.
God has called us from being slaves of the devil to become followers of Christ. Lent means that we examine our lives, repent of our failures, and desire God’s absolution (forgiveness). When we realize what Jesus did to save us from sin, we are moved to glorify God by what we say and do as His children.
The Introit: This Sunday is called “Reminiscere,” which means “remember.” In the Introit, we ask God to remember His mercy and love to deliver us from all troubles. The entire Psalm 25 (from which the Introit and Gradual are taken) call upon God to help us in trouble and forgive our sins.
The Collect: With this prayer we humbly confess our failings that “we have no strength to fight evil or do good. Like the mother in our text, we plead for God’s merciful help so that inwardly and outwardly He may defend us from bodily adversities and from every evil thought that would hurt our souls. God knows our weakness and that we need continuous help, since we do not know what temptations may assault us. We pray that God would keep us safe, as we do in the 5th Petition of the Lord’s Prayer.
The Gradual is a cry for help from the believer whose self-examination finds himself with a heart that is troubled, distressed, afflicted and suffering weakness because of sin. Amid this cry comes the song of thanksgiving for God’s mercy and goodness. For by His mercy our sins are forgiven, we are children of God and heirs of heaven.
The Paraments are purple to symbolize the season of true repentance that is an important part of preparing to celebrate Easter. For we need to know how greatly we have sinned against God’s law and how much we deserve God’s eternal wrath, so that we can truly appreciate the salvation that Jesus won for all people on the cross and trust in His promise of eternal life in heaven.