DAILY GOSPEL AND COMMENTARY:
“BE MERCIFUL, JUST AS YOUR FATHER IS MERCIFUL
(Lk 6:36-38).”
“BE MERCIFUL, JUST AS YOUR FATHER IS MERCIFUL
(Lk 6:36-38).”
READING I
Dn 9:4b–10
“Lord, great and awesome God, you who keep your merciful covenant toward those who love you and observe your commandments! We have sinned, been wicked and done evil; we have rebelled and departed from your commandments and your laws. We have not obeyed your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers, and all the people of the land. Justice, O Lord, is on your side; we are shamefaced even to this day: we, the men of Judah, the residents of Jerusalem, and all Israel, near and far, in all the countries to which you have scattered them because of their treachery toward you. O Lord, we are shamefaced, like our kings, our princes, and our fathers, for having sinned against you. But yours, O Lord, our God, are compassion and forgiveness! Yet we rebelled against you and paid no heed to your command, O Lord, our God, to live by the law you gave us through your servants the prophets.”
RESPONSORIAL PSALM
R. Lord, do not deal with us as our sins deserve.
Remember not against us the iniquities of the past;
may your compassion quickly come to us,
for we are brought very low.
R. Lord, do not deal with us as our sins deserve.
Help us, O God our savior,
because of the glory of your name;
Deliver us and pardon our sins
for your name’s sake.
R. Lord, do not deal with us as our sins deserve.
Let the prisoners’ sighing come before you;
with your great power free those doomed to death.
Then we, your people and the sheep of your pasture,
will give thanks to you forever;
through all generations we will declare your praise.
R. Lord, do not deal with us as our sins deserve.
VERSE BEFORE THE GOSPEL
Your words, Lord, are spirit and life; you have the message of eternal life.
GOSPEL
Lk 6:36–38
“Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. (38) For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”
- v. 36 The model of mercy which Christ sets before us is God himself, of whom St Paul says: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions” (2 Cor 1:3-4).
- “The first quality of this virtue,” Fray Luis de Granada explains, “is that it makes men like God and like the most glorious thing in him, his mercy (Lk 6:36). For certainly the greatest perfection a creature can have is to be like his Creator; and the more like him he is, the more perfect he is. Certainly one of the things which is most appropriate to God is mercy, which is what the Church means when it says that prayer: ‘Lord God, to whom it is proper to be merciful and forgiving’. It says that this is proper to God, because just as a creature, as creature, is characteristically poor and needy (and therefore characteristically receives and does not give), so, on the contrary, since God is infinitely rich and powerful, to him alone does it belong to give and not to receive, and therefore it is appropriate for him to be merciful and forgiving” (Book of Prayer and Meditation, third part, third treatise).
- This is the rule a Christian should apply: be compassionate towards other people’s afflictions as if they were one’s own, and try to remedy them.
- The Church spells out this rule by giving us a series of corporal works of mercy (visiting and caring for the sick, giving food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty…) and spiritual works of mercy (teaching the ignorant, correcting the person who has erred, forgiving injuries…) (cf. St Pius X, Catechism of Christian Doctrine, 944f).
- We should also show understanding towards people who are in error:
- “Love and courtesy of this kind should not, of course, make us indifferent to truth and goodness. Love, in fact, impels the followers of Christ to proclaim to all men the truth which saves. But we must distinguish between the error (which must always be rejected) and the person in error, who never loses his dignity as a person even though he flounders amid false or inadequate religious ideas. God alone is the judge and the searcher of hearts: he forbids us to pass judgment on the inner guilt of others” (Vatican II, Gaudium et spes, 28).
- v. 38 We read in Sacred Scripture of the generosity of the widow of Zarephath, whom God asked to give food to Elijah the prophet even though she had very little left; he then rewarded her generosity by constantly renewing her supply of meal and oil (1 Kings 17:9ff). The same sort of thing happened when the boy supplied the five loaves and two fish which our Lord multiplied to feed a huge crowd of people (cf. Jn 6:9) — a vivid example of what God does when we give him whatever we have, even if it does not amount to much.
- God does not let himself be outdone in generosity: “Go, generously and like a child ask him: ‘What can you mean to give me when you ask me for “this”?” (St. Josemaria, The Way, 153). However much we give God in this life, he will give us more in life eternal.
VIDEO COMMENTARY
TOPIC: ARE YOU QUICK TO JUDGE AND CONDEMN OTHERS?
The message of our Lord in today’s gospel reading is to be compassionate and merciful, to be slow to judgment and condemnation of others, as God is. Why? First, we do not know why the sin was committed. Second, we do not know how hard the person tried not to sin. Third, we do not know what kind of power or how strong a force compelled this person to sin. Fourth, we do not know what we would have done if we were in the same situation.
SEE AS WELL: BLESSED ARE THE MERCIFUL, FOR THEY SHALL RECEIVE MERCY HERE AND HERE.
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