The more we allow ourselves to personally experience sanctification by faith, the more we also experience healing by faith. These two doctrines walk together. The more the Spirit of God lives and acts in the soul of believers, the more miracles He will work in the body. By this, the world will recognize what redemption means.
- Andrew Murray
(The reality of spiritual transformation, even in the body! How do you experience this?)
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Dn 3:25, 34-43; Psalm 25:4-5ab, 6 and 7bc, 8-9
Mt 18:21-35
Peter approached Jesus and asked him,
“Lord, if my brother sins against me,
how often must I forgive him?
As many as seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times.
That is why the Kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king
who decided to settle accounts with his servants.
When he began the accounting,
a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount.
Since he had no way of paying it back,
his master ordered him to be sold,
along with his wife, his children, and all his property,
in payment of the debt.
At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said,
‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.’
Moved with compassion the master of that servant
let him go and forgave him the loan.
When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants
who owed him a much smaller amount.
He seized him and started to choke him, demanding,
‘Pay back what you owe.’
Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him,
‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’
But he refused.
Instead, he had him put in prison
until he paid back the debt.
Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened,
they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master
and reported the whole affair.
His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant!
I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to.
Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant,
as I had pity on you?’
Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers
until he should pay back the whole debt.
So will my heavenly Father do to you,
unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.”
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Reflection on the Scriptures
I
Peter asks a question that was perhaps on many of the disciples’ minds: what do you do with a person who keeps sinning against you or the sheep that keeps straying from the flock? Peter thought that he was being generous with his suggestion of seven times. But Jesus’ response of seventy-seven times indicates that they can be no limit put on how much one should forgive. This is because God is always ready to
forgive us. However, we will be unable to experience the fruits of this forgiveness if we are unable to forgive one another from the heart.
In the reading today, the servant was unable to experience the fruits of the master’s forgiveness of his debt because of the hardness of his heart as manifested by his unwillingness to forgive his fellow servant. There are times when we are reluctant to forgive someone because we feel we are letting them off the hook for the hurt that they caused us. Little do we realize that, in clinging on to that resentment, we
are allowing that person to continue to hurt us many times over. Forgiveness allows us to let go of that hurt and to heal.
- by Nicky Santos, S.J.
The Son of God Became Human
From The Catechism of the Catholic Church
Part One, Section Two, Chapter Two
Article 3: He Was Conceived by the Power of the Holy Spirit, and Born of the Virgin Mary
Paragraph 1: The Son of God Became Man
IV. HOW IS THE SON OF GOD MAN?
470 The Son of God therefore communicates to his humanity his own personal mode of existence in the Trinity. In his soul as in his body, Christ thus expresses humanly the divine ways of the Trinity:98
The Son of God. . . worked with human hands; he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things except sin.99
(Footnote references in the Catechism.)
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