Seeking forgiveness is a demonstration of confidence and trust in the one asked to pardon. If sincere, our cry for clemency exposes our weakness and embarrasses us. Before whom are we ready to reveal our fragility? Only before the one in whom we have confidence and trust, because this person never seeks to humiliate but to give us back our humanity when we show that we have lost it in shameful or sinful acts. The profit we draw from this process of repentance and forgiveness is the deepening of our relationships; of trust and of confidence.

In spite of the beauty of the reality of repentance and forgiveness, we have made a radical turn around from being a people conscious of the need for a return to God to a people capable of justifying our weaknesses and faults. We often say, “God created me so; it is my nature”. But to take pride in one’s weakness is to empty one’s self of that dignity that confers on us the identity “human”. To deny my sinfulness and weakness is to demonstrate a certain lack of confidence in humanity, for even if St. Paul writes, “…all have sinned and lack God’s glory” (Rm. 3: 23), he concludes that we are made clean by the power of the Holy Spirit (Rm. 8). To acknowledge one’s sinfulness or weakness is to show the divine strength in our humanity. It is by this strength that we never loose hope. This is the source of our confidence and trust, that His grace is enough.

During this second week of Lent, the readings exhort us to trust in God. In Daniel’s prayer, he asks of the God who never forgets his promise, no matter our sinfulness, to accept our brokenness as an offertory by forgiving our sins when we come back to Him in repentance. Daniel is humble enough to call shame upon himself. No one likes to do this, but Daniel knows that God will not become proud of his penance by seeking to humiliate him further. He has confidence in the God that raises the lowly.
In the same spirit, Isaiah calls on the community to return to the Lord so as to be made whole again, no matter her sins. Such is the power of confidence and trust in God that Jeremiah proclaims that the man who invests in mortals and not in God curses himself. On the contrary, whoever confides in the Lord is like a tree with roots dipped in springs of running water, that knows no heat and keeps its leaves evergreen. Such a powerful image!