Today is the second Sunday of Lent, a season of grace, prayer, penance, and almsgiving that helps us walk with God. The Lenten observances and practices are meaningful if they are carried out in loving obedience and faith to God. Lent as a season of grace is a time when we leave behind those distractions and develop a deeper relationship with God. In today’s liturgy, we are called upon to have absolute faith in God irrespective of the challenges and trials that confront us every day. Such challenges can lead to loss of faith in God but from the example of Abraham in the first reading and Paul’s injunction in the second we are encouraged to remain firm and steadfast.

Lent is here again when we draw closer to God and go into the desert with the Lord in prayer, fasting and almsgiving. The season of Lent is a season of grace because by working with the Lord for this forty day journey we draw strength and grace from the life of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. We embark on Lent as a special time of repentance, reconciliation, and reparation. We grow during Lent by accepting and living the Good News deeper in our lives. No matter how much the power of sin and it’s effect have flooded every area of our lives, salvation is possible for us the moment we turn around and embrace the mercy and love of God which He offers us every day and the Lenten period is the time His grace flows in abundance because Jesus wants us to come very close to him with our heart and mind.

The first reading presents us with the agonizing condition of a leper who must be declared unclean by Aaron the priest when the signs like a scab, or pustule or blotch appear on the body of the person. While in the Gospel Jesus heals a leper who begs Him for healing. According to the Mosaic Law it is the priest who declares an individual a leper when certain signs appear which makes the individual unclean and unfit to be part of a community. Whenever the person is cured it is also the priest who certifies the person clean and able to be welcomed back into the community.

In the gospel passage of last Sunday, Jesus was seen in the Synagogue teaching with authority and casting out demons from a man under demonic influence and possession. In that, He demonstrates His power over evil forces and demons. In today’s gospel reading He demonstrates His power over pain and sickness. We read that “when He came into Peter’s house, the mother-in- law of Peter was sick with fever and immediately they told Him of her. And He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up and the fever left her.” This action reveals some amazing qualities of Jesus.