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If you have people who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have people who will deal likewise with their fellow men.
- St. Francis of
Assisi
(Compassion unto all living beings . . . )
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Dn 3:25, 34-43; Ps. 25:4-9; Mt 18:21-35
R. Remember your mercies, O Lord.
Your ways, O LORD, make known to me; teach me your paths, Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my savior.
Remember that your compassion,
O LORD, and your kindness are from of old. In your kindness remember me, because of your goodness, O LORD.
Good and upright is the LORD; thus he shows sinners the way. He guides the humble to justice, he teaches the humble his way. UCCB Lectionary
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Reflection on the Scriptures |
Through Jesus' atoning sacrifice for our sins on the cross, we have been forgiven a debt beyond all reckoning. It cost God his very own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to ransom us with the price of his blood. Jesus paid the price for us and won for us pardon for our sins and freedom from slavery to our unruly desires and sinful habits. God in his mercy offers us the grace and help
of his Holy Spirit so we can love as he loves, pardon as he pardons, and treat others with the same mercy and kindness which he has shown to us. God has made his peace with us. Have you made your peace with God? If you believe and accept God's love and and pardon for you, then you likewise must choose to be merciful towards those who are in debt to you. Are you ready to forgive and to make peace with your neighbor as God has made peace with you?
"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred let me sow love. Where there is injury let me sow pardon. Where there is doubt let me sow faith. Where there is despair let me give hope. Where there is darkness let me give light. Where there is sadness let me give joy." (Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi, 1181-1226)
DailyScripture.net
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The Cloud of Unknowing, by Anonymous
That right as by the defailing of our bodily wits we begin more readily to come to knowing of ghostly things, so by
the defailing of our ghostly wits we begin most readily to come to the knowledge of God, such as is possible by grace to be had here.
AND therefore travail fast in this nought, and this nowhere, and leave thine outward bodily wits and all that they work in: for I tell thee truly, that this work may not be conceived by them.
For by thine eyes thou mayest not conceive of anything, unless it be by the length and the breadth, the smallness and the greatness, the roundness and the squareness, the farness and the nearness, and the colour of it. And by thine ears, nought but noise or some manner of sound. By thine nose, nought but either stench or savour. And by thy taste,
nought but either sour or sweet, salt or fresh, bitter or liking. And by thy feeling, nought but either hot or cold, hard or tender, soft or sharp. And truly, neither hath God nor ghostly things none of these qualities nor quantities. And therefore leave thine outward wits, and work not with them, neither within nor without: for all those that set them to be ghostly workers within, and ween that they should either hear, smell, or see, taste or feel, ghostly things, either within them or without,
surely they be deceived, and work wrong against the course of nature.
- Chapter 70
(The term, "ghostly" = "spiritual".) |
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