"A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me." Let this be our mantra as we enter into the last of these forty days. We cannot hope to be free of sin in this life. But we can plead for a heart that refuses to avert its eyes from our sins or to pretend that they are anything other than what they are, even as we commit them. And we can beg for a spirit that calmly bears both the just guilt of our own evil and the unjust suffering brought on by our neighbors' disobedience, even as we strive to wash them all away. Now, these might not be the gifts we long for at Easter, but they are the ones we need if we hope to enter into the mystery that is divine mercy.