Tag: <span>Mercy</span>

February 13, 2021January 29, 2021

Bread and Fishes

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

There is something startling about today’s psalm, in light of the first reading: “In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.”

At first glance, the first reading does not appear to paint a picture of God as refuge. Rather, we seem to find the root quintessence of the image some have of the Old Testament God as wrathful. With exclamations, God hands down the terrible consequences of the sin of Adam and Eve.

As usual with such assessments, though, this image some have of an angry God undervalues the gravity of sin–of thwarting the omnipotent God. Well might God simply have removed His thoughts from Adam and Eve, upon which they simply would have ceased to exist. Or, he could have imposed eternal damnation then and there.

Instead, the consequences He metes out are incredibly measured. He stands in the breach and reduces the impact of their sin to, effectively, a more difficult life, and one that is limited in span.

God is their refuge, even as He imposes just consequences. He Himself crafts leather garments for them. He accommodates and adapts to the new situation they have brought on for themselves through their disobedience–their shame at their nakedness.

And once salvation comes in Christ, His Providence pours out an overabundance of love. We see the full measure of what we receive in Christ prefigured in today’s gospel, in the multiplication of the loaves and fishes. He takes the good bestowed on us by nature, and in His love extends it limitlessly, without measure.

But in the end, “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him.” (Cf. 1 Cor. 2:9) We have literally no idea how blessed we will be in eternity for having chosen, unlike Adam and Eve, obedience to God and salvation in His Christ.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Obedience takes special grace from God, won by Christ through His obedience on the Cross. Ask Jesus, among all the charisms God gives, to give you the only one that really matters in the end: The charism of obedience. Ask Him for this gift above all others, even if it were to mean sacrificing all the rest.

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February 6, 2021January 22, 2021

Heart of Gold

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

In today’s gospel, after the Twelve return from their arduous journey preaching the message of repentance, Jesus invites them to come away by themselves and rest a while. But the crowds, not particularly empathetic to their fatigue and hungry for the Good News, figure out their destination and reach it before them.

Not annoyed at all, Jesus rather takes pity on the crowds, who are like sheep without a shepherd.

We see something of this pastoral tenderness of Jesus mirrored in how the Holy Spirit inspired the closing of the letter to the Hebrews, our first reading for today. The letter ends, not with an admonition or advice, but with a prayer for the addressees, that God Himself will carry out in them what is pleasing to Him, in Jesus Christ; that God will come to their aid in their quest to be faithful Christians.

Christian life is frightfully demanding. It is not just that the Commandments are difficult to live up to, which they are; it is that Christ wants to transform us into the very embodiment of the virtue of selfless charity, and this transformation is hard.

But Christianity is not defined by its difficulty. It is defined by that tenderness, that intoxicating tenderness, with which the Sovereign of the Universe incarnate looks upon each of us.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus for the gift of His intimate friendship. Ask Him also for the gift of transforming your heart into a pastoral heart, one that is continually moved to profound compassion for your fellow humans–especially those who do not possess His friendship.

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November 22, 2020November 9, 2020

King Unequaled

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

On this feast of Christ the King, we see a rich array of what Jesus’ kingship means:

In the first reading and the psalm, we see Him as merciful shepherd–a King who gathers and leads His people.

In the second reading, we see Him as destroyer and subjugator of competing powers–a King who knows no equal.

In the Gospel, we see Him as a judge who welcomes or condemns us for eternity based on our acts of charity and kindness toward others–a King who administers justice.

If there is one overall impression one can draw from these readings, it is that He is tender and kind to those who have taken up the offer of salvation He has made at the price of His own blood. As we see in the first reading, this includes those who are lost or who stray.

But He does not hesitate to cast from His sight those arrogant enough to rebuff Him with the strength of their own freedom, or who ignore His demands of kindness and mercy toward others–“the sleek and the strong” sheep of the first reading, the goats of the Gospel, “every authority and power” in the second reading.

Jesus is no milquetoast King. This should fill us with exuberant joy, hope, and confidence on the one hand, but deep concern and determination on the other: Joy in the knowledge that if we ask Him too, He will assist us in our efforts to fulfill His will and protect our eternal destiny; concern and determination to pray and sacrifice constantly that as many will be saved as possible.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Close your eyes and imagine final judgement as described by Jesus today, where He, crowned King, discerns who is to be saved, and who is to be condemned. What can you do to feed those who are hungry precisely for the salvation that He metes out in judgement? How is He asking you to participate in His merciful act of salvation? Ask Him how you can assist Him in His grand mission of bringing as many as possible to Heaven.

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October 24, 2020December 12, 2020

The Gardener

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Today’s readings seem to depict a flow of the potential intended by glorious, idealistic love, terrible waste, and mercy that never stops hoping or lowers the original ideal.

St. Paul speaks about the lofty ideal to which God has called us, namely, the “full stature of Christ,” to “grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ.” Jesus Christ is God, in intimate union with the Father and the Trinity, and it is right into the heart of this dynamic that He wants to take us (cf. Jn. 17:21). This ideal is so exalted, that there is no way we can attain it without God Himself taking on the role of protagonist of our individual spiritual growth, and He does this, which is exciting.

In fact, He, Jesus, is the gardener from the parable in the Gospel, who cultivates our souls actively and lovingly.

Then comes the tragic part: The fig tree, representing our soul, bears no fruit, despite all the cultivation. Sins of pride and sensuality distract us and hinder Jesus’ work of cultivation. This parable is reminiscent of the parable of the owner of the vineyard, who keeps looking for fruit at harvest but finds none (cf. Mk. 12:1-12). It is truly tragic, because to bring us to the great ideal of glory and happiness He has designed for us, Jesus has fertilized the tree with His own blood.

But this isn’t the end of the story. The owner of the garden is inclined to uproot the pointless tree, but the gardener pleads for another year to keep working it. Jesus keeps mercifully knocking on the door, asking permission to come in and bring His work of cultivation to completion.

Still, in this dramatic dynamic, it is important to note that the story ends with our freedom. If we obstinately refuse to the gardener’s overtures, the outcome in the end, like that foretold for the fig tree, is destruction.

We can draw hope in our Lord’s persistence with us, though, from the history of Israel and the Church. Despite the many horrid sins of the leaders of the People of God throughout the ages, and of the people themselves, He continues cultivating.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Reflect on your sins–the ways you simply refuse to step up to the fullness of what Jesus is calling you too. Consider how intensely He loves you, how excited He is about your destiny, and how tragic it is to disappoint that destiny. Happily, now, in prayer, is your opportunity to hand Jesus the keys to the garden of your heart. Tell Him without any reservation that you only want the destiny He has prepared for you, and ask Him to ensure that this destiny is fulfilled.

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September 13, 2020August 28, 2020

Let It Go

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Some people love to contrast the Old Testament and the New Testament, caricaturing God in the former as a meany and in the latter as a sweet guy who just loves to hug.

In reality, both Testaments feature a Creator who is not to be messed with, whose laws hold firm and bear eternal consequences, and yet who is also mind-blowingly merciful. He not only gives us second chances, He comes up with ingenious schemes to take the hit for His own laws and open doors that we have closed for ourselves. But we must opt for those second chances. We still must conform to His way, the way of our deeper and better nature, the way He created us to be.

In the face of the mistaken tendency to pit Old Testament and New Testament against each other, Jesus’ teaching in the Gospel is nothing but the first reading repeated, but in a beautiful, easily understood story–that is, in warm, human terms. He teaches what we hear summed up earlier in the Lord’s Prayer (cf. Mt. 6:9ff): “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The simple but tough lesson: God will not forgive us our sins if we do not forgive our brothers and sisters from our heart.

Of course, this does not necessarily mean that the wound does not still cause us pain. The though of the offending person can still cause us revulsion, even physical sickness. But we do not hatch plans or desire their suffering and destruction. We leave their welfare in God’s hands and even pray that He will given them what they need, conversion if necessary, to be happy with Him one day.

The contrary attitude is one of willingly harbored resentment, by which we actively choose to desire suffering and harm for the person who has offended us, out of “justice” in return for what they have done for us.

But what is it that causes us to cling to such desires, and stubbornly refuse to let them go? Ultimately, it is attachment of our heart to created things. Sin and spiritual imperfection come from our heart attaching itself to created things, whether those things are people or possessions, or more intangible things such as our own reputation. Spiritual perfection comes from a profound relationship with God whereby He truly is all we cling to as essential.

The soul with created attachments is at risk of the sin of resentment, of not forgiving, if another person ventures to interfere with the object of its attachment.

We may think of this as another of Jesus’ tough, challenging teachings–and it is. But there is also something beautiful in this teaching that we may take for granted, that we may overlook or fail to fully appreciate: If we do let go of ill desires for others, and thus forgive them from the heart, we have the joy and freedom of knowing that God does the same for us, even though our sin has taken a baseball bat to the very order of the cosmos, to the very underpinnings of our own nature. Even though, more importantly, our sin has spat in the face of the very author of these. God’s mercy inspires awe. We do not deserve it. And yet, it is right there at the fingertips of the person willing to let go of attachment to others’ offenses.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Contemplate God’s mercy. Think of His mercy in the face of your terrible sins, but also in the face of humankind’s wholesale rejection of Him. Ask Him to show you how to be merciful, like a father showing his five-year-old how to ride a bicycle. Ask Him to help you to attach your heart and your will more and more only to Him.

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August 20, 2020December 13, 2020

Din of Evil, Triumph of Good

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Two discouraging words when it comes to the spread of evil and godlessness are “majority” and “power.” “Satan is having a field day,” some say, and it is true. We decipher the cunning hidden agendas of individuals and organizations with massive amounts of money and key positions of cultural and political leadership aimed at removing God and His principles from every aspect of culture and society. They deceive others, and in some cases themselves as well, into thinking that the agenda is about justice and personal freedom. But in reality, they push continuously toward totalitarian government supplanting Divine Providence, and political alignment with a certain overreaching social agenda supplanting personal morality and charity.

But today’s readings betray an even deeper force at work that we can decipher. If indeed the noisy powers of the day, in every age, repeat over and over the first sin of supplanting God with man, something else is going on. Something else which, while quiet, carries the impetus of a volcanic surge.

That “something else” is the tireless and unstoppable impetus of God’s mercy. Here, words like “minority” and “weakness” become wondrous and beautiful, as God moves through the populous, drawing real people close to Him, purifying them, and leading them back to Him. He is quiet and understated, but His mercy is gloriously stubborn as it searches every human heart for a crack or crevice of openness through which He inserts the challenge to follow Him.

“I will pour clean water on you and wash away all your sins.” “Many are called, but few are chosen.”

If we consider history in this light, it belongs to the saints–both those recognized, and those anonymous. Even the stage of evil upon which they act out their lives is set for their sake, as a contrast against which their virtue and beauty shines, and a challenger through which their greatness is strengthened and increased.

We must work tirelessly for the triumph of good in the world, including in the public sphere; but our hope should not lie in a flashy, short-term victory. Rather, we must hope in the hidden but glorious action of God in hearts that we will never see, who may never be interviewed on TV or participate in a poll. Just as He acts in our hearts, not through external pressure, but through the breeze of His Holy Spirit.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Talk to Our Lord about the prevalence of evil in the world. Does it disturb Him? Does it worry Him? Does He have it all in hand, or is He expecting us to “save Him” from it? On the other hand, if He has it in hand, How would He like us to help along the triumph of good in the world? What are His expectations for us and from us in an often frighteningly chaotic world?

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August 13, 2020July 22, 2020

Debts Big and Little

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

Jesus makes His point very well in today’s Gospel. The servant who refuses to be patient with payback of a tiny loan from his fellow servant, immediately after receiving complete forgiveness for a massive loan by his own master, seems to us absurd, repugnant, beyond unreasonable–and so it must have seemed to Jesus’ listeners.

So, why is it so hard for us to forgive those who offend us? When we become enraged or resentful, why don’t we see ourselves in the same absurd light as we see this servant? It is simple: Either we don’t appreciate the enormity of the debt we ourselves have been forgiven, or we don’t trust that in fact it has been forgiven.

We are so accustomed, albeit unconsciously, to seeing God in a relative manner, as one more element of our lives, as one more duty to be dispensed. But God doesn’t see things that way. From His point of view, He is our all in all; He is our Alpha and Omega, our Beginning and End; He envisions us wrapped up in the vary same fibers of union with Him that unite the Trinity.

Thus, the original sin of Adam, which we all inherited at birth, and our individual sins are not just little tantrums to be waved off with a laugh, if we are to believe Jesus’s message in today’s Gospel. The enormity of their import comes from their threefold offense against the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

When we sin, we reject God our Father, our Creator, the very source of our being. Thus we reject our own essence and being at its very roots. When we sin, we reject God the Son, who dragged a bloody cross up Calvary hill, falling with it three times but persevering, ultimately pouring out His blood and accepting death on the cross to give us back that being, to give us back our fulfillment. And when we sin, we reject God the Holy Spirit, who Himself constitutes the union of the Blessed Trinity–we violate that vision of our incorporation into that union that is God’s vision for us. We violate the most sacred intimacy that is God Himself.

When we meditate on our sin, we should not so much meditate on the despicable acts or omissions in our lives themselves, merely to contemplate their innate ugliness–we should meditate on the beauty, the glory, the grandeur, the love, the intimacy of the One we have offended and of His dreams for our destiny incorporated into the heart of Himself. And the price He paid to get rid of that enormous debt for us.

And then drink deeply of the certainty that because of that price He paid, through the sacraments of baptism and confession, that debt is well and truly gone. Completely gone.

And then contemplate our petty grievances with our neighbor. They are as comparatively unimportant as we are small compared to God. We feel them deeply and mightily. But compared to our grievances against God, they are absurdly tiny.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Hold a crucifix, or look at one on a wall, and consider that the one crucified, paying the price for you, is the absolute Master of the Universe, voluntarily made vulnerable. Consider the enormity of even small careless rejections of this great Master. Then, consider that this crucifix has wiped that debt away. Finally, look directly at the offenses that habitually make you most resentful against your neighbor. And likewise wipe them away; give them in complete freedom to this great God on the cross, even if it seems to mean that you feel them all the more bitterly.

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August 12, 2020July 21, 2020

It’s Either/Or

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.

In the 1960s and 1970s, it seemed the Church was replete with theologians excited to invent–convinced, it appeared, that their hour was the hour of innovation. The thirst for innovation seemed in some cases to surpass the thirst for truth.

One of the brand new theological trends of that time, which unfortunately remains prevalent to this very day among even good and noble souls, is the notion that maybe, just maybe–read: probably, likely–all or at least most people in the end are saved.

This supposition flies in the face of the prior one-thousand-nine-hundred-something years of tradition in the Church and the unanimous teaching of the saints. It also flies in the face of the Gospel itself, where Jesus unequivocally states that those who walk the broad road that leads to damnation are many (cf. Mt. 7:13).

Such theology rejects the message of the first reading wholesale, or relegates it completely to Old Testament times. Yet, this first reading is a very tame precursor to the terrible separation of the sheep from the goats at Final Judgement, about which Jesus explicitly speaks (Mt. 25: 31-46).

And in today’s Gospel, He talks about treating those who commit offenses and fail to listen to the Church as outcasts, indicating further that whatever the Church binds or looses on earth is likewise bound or loosed in Heaven.

That God allows souls to be condemned is of course as mysterious as it is certain–but a sort of understanding can be reached if we accept that God values human freedom more than He does human salvation. He would rather allow persons to walk to their own perdition than remove from them their freedom by forcing salvation on them when they have rejected it.

But who in his right mind would reject God’s mercy and eternal life, in the end, if given the choice?

This too, while mysterious, can be understood in a way when we realize that, by and large, people don’t reject God’s mercy and love–they reject the prospect of their own transformation. In the end, only saints stand in the presence of God. Standing before Him without full alignment to Him would in fact be a fate more painful than Hell. Reaching sainthood, whether on earth or in purgatory, is a deeply painful process of detachment, and while the end result is exaltation, the process feels like one is being turned inside out.

And many, many reject the prospect of this process–quietly but explicitly, in the recesses of their hearts–and lose God as the inevitable result. There is no middle ground.

But hearken to the second-to-last statement in today’s Gospel! “If two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father.”

Per the message of St. Faustina, the Church must come together as never before and pray and sacrifice for the conversion of sinners. And in line with today’s Gospel, Our Lord assured this saint that prayer for the conversion of sinners is always answered.

Heavenly Father, by the infinite power of the sacrifice of your Son, penetrate deeply into the hearts of sinners, and convert them to yourself! I give you my freedom as a small token; leverage it as you did the self-gift of the Blessed Virgin Mary to pry open the hardened hearts of sinners and show them compellingly what they are missing! Lead them to Yourself!

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Him to what lengths He would go–in fact, went–to open the door for sinners to walk through to their salvation. Contemplate the degree of His sacrifice for the eternal fulfillment of human persons. And ask Him what role He would like you to play to help them put one foot in front of the other and walk through that door.

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