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Message of the Day
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"You are quite willing to have a cross, but you want to have the choice."
- St. Francis de Sales [16th-17th C.], "Letters to Madame Chantal" -
(But of course! So
what is the cross you are avoiding these days?)
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Lectionary Readings
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EZ 12:1-12; PS 78:56-59, 61-62; MT 18:21-19:1
R. Do not forget the works of the Lord!
They tempted and
rebelled against God the Most High,
and kept not his decrees.
They turned back and were faithless like their fathers;
they recoiled like a treacherous bow.
They angered him with their high
places
and with their idols roused his jealousy.
God heard and was enraged
and utterly rejected Israel.
And he surrendered his strength into captivity,
his glory in the hands of the foe.
He abandoned his people to the sword
and was enraged against his inheritance.
USCCB Lectionary
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Reflection on the Gospel
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Mercy is the flip-side of God's justice. Without mercy justice is cold, calculating, and even cruel. Mercy seasons justice as salt seasons meat and gives it flavor. Mercy
follows justice and perfects it. Justice demands that the wrong be addressed. To show mercy without addressing the wrong and to pardon the unrepentant is not true mercy but license. C.S. Lewis, a 20th century Christian author wrote: "Mercy will flower only when it grows in the crannies of the rock of Justice: transplanted to the marshlands of mere Humanitarianism, it becomes a man-eating weed, all the more dangerous because it is still called by the same name as the mountain variety." If
we want mercy shown to us we must be ready to forgive others from the heart as God has forgiven us. Do you hold any grudge or resentment towards anyone? Ask the Lord to purify your heart that you may show mercy and loving-kindness to all - and especially to those who cause you grief and ill-will.
"Lord Jesus, you have been kind and forgiving towards me. May I be merciful as you are merciful.
Free me from all bitterness and resentment that I may truly forgive from the heart those who have caused me injury or grief."
DailyScripture.Net
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Spiritual Reading
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The Cloud of Unknowing, by Anonymous Beware of pride, for it blasphemeth God in His gifts, and
boldeneth sinners. Wert thou verily meek, thou shouldest feel of this work as I say: that God giveth it freely without any desert. The condition of this work is such, that the presence thereof enableth a soul for to have it and for to feel it. And that ableness may no soul have without it. The ableness to this work is oned to the work's self without departing; so that whoso feeleth this work is able thereto, and none else. Insomuch, that without this work a soul is as it were dead, and cannot
covet it nor desire it. Forasmuch as thou willest it and desirest it, so much hast thou of it, and no more nor no less: and yet is it no will, nor no desire, but a thing thou wottest never what, that stirreth thee to will and desire thou wottest never what. Reck thee never if thou wittest no more, I pray thee: but do forth ever more and more, so that thou be ever doing.
- Chapter 34
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