A Reflection for the Wednesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

During the season of Lent, I often think about the idea of balance. To me, it’s important to recognize that Lent is not only a season of sacrifice, but it is also a season of balance. It is a time when we balance charity and almsgiving along with sacrifice. In a broader sense, we are balancing our time for God with our personal lives, which shouldn’t be a balancing act, but can feel like it at times because we are often consumed with our personal ambitions.

Because I am a first-year, I have often felt too busy to incorporate my faith with my academic life and I think this is a common consensus across a spectrum of college students. With the rigorous workload and the pressure to be involved in extracurriculars, all while searching for the perfect summer internship, how do we make time for God in our seemingly busy lives? Given that this week’s responsorial Psalm is “Glory and praise for ever,” I think that a simple way of making time for God is through the practice of gratefulness. As I walk around Yale campus on a rarely nice sunny day in the season of spring, I can’t help but think how grateful I am to be a student at Yale, to be able study at a four-year university and pursue a career of my choice. This is all thanks to the Glory of God. In my daily life, I try to remember to thank God for all I have, whether that be my family, my friends or myself. God so perfectly created all of us so that we have a balanced life of happiness and hardship. And when the world seems out of balance, we ought to remember God is always there to stabilize our imbalances.