One week ago we began Lent on Ash Wednesday. The scripture readings for this day are, not surprisingly, about repentance, a major Lenten theme. Jesus in the Gospel speaks of our need to repent. What is surprising is the Old Testament lesson from the book of Job where God is depicted as repenting. God “repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them.” God repents? That rather odd sounding phrase serves as a reminder that the will of God is not fate. We are partners in the will of God, not victims of it. (Think of the prayer of Jesus in Gethsemane.) We pray, therefore, not to change God’s mind but to learn how to conform ourselves more closely to God’s will.
