March 17, 2025
Monday of the Second Week in Lent
Lectionary: 230
Reading 1
"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. (see 103:10a) Lord, do not deal with us
according to our sins.
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 according to our sins.
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 according to our sins.
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 according to our sins.
Verse Before the Gospel See
Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life;
you have the words of everlasting life.
Gospel
Jesus said to his disciples:
"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
"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.
For the measure with which you measure
will in return be measured out to you."
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/031725.cfm
Commentary on Daniel
9:4-10
The theme of the readings today is repentance; it is a
prayer for God’s mercy and compassion. It is extraordinary that for over 1,000
years this prayer from the Book of Daniel has been read in today’s Lenten Mass.
It is an excellent penance prayer—a national act of contrition describing God’s
perfection and man’s imperfection. It is a prayer of sorrow and repentance for
the many ways in which we have failed to listen to God and his messengers. It
is a prayer which contains humility, worship, confession and petition:
…we have sinned and done wrong, acted wickedly and
rebelled, [turned] aside from your commandments and
ordinances. We have not listened to your servants the prophets…
And:
Righteousness is on your side, O Lord, but open shame, as
at this day, falls on us…
So much of the time, these are not the words we hear from
people’s lips—or our own. As soon as something goes wrong, we immediately start
looking around for someone to blame.
Our media spend a great deal of time and space pointing
fingers at others as the source of our troubles. We call it “scapegoating”. It
is something we all indulge in to a greater or lesser extent. Just let us
listen to a few people gossiping together over a pint or a cup of coffee.
Today’s reading calls on us to point the finger at ourselves
and to be fully aware of how we have failed, have sinned, have rebelled—and
have much to be shameful for. A good way to measure our sensitivity in this
area might be to look at our confessions. When we do go, what do we confess to?
Do we just throw out a few platitudinal admissions (e.g. ‘telling lies’,
‘distractions at prayers’, ‘losing our temper’), or do we go deep into the
areas where we truly fail in our relationship with God, with others and with
ourselves?
Perhaps we do not go to Confession at all because “we can’t
think of anything to say”. At the same time, most of us would be very slow to
reveal to others our inner thoughts and feelings because, to tell the truth, we
are quite ashamed of them. Paradoxically, it is often the Saint, the one who is
closest to God, who is most aware of his or her sinfulness and need for
healing.
Lent is a time for conversion, renewal and change. It is a
time for openness—especially with oneself. That cannot even begin to take place
until we are aware of and acknowledge in ourselves the areas where that change
has to take place.
And, having recognised our faults and the harm they have
done to others and to ourselves in our relationship with God, we beg his mercy
and compassion. And we know for certain that God’s mercy and compassion are
guaranteed, once we open ourselves to him.
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Commentary on Luke
6:36-38
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
This is the last sentence in Luke’s version of Jesus’
teaching on the need to love our enemies. We saw the Matthaean version last
Saturday. There the passage ends with:
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is
perfect.
(Matt 5:48)
It is clear that in showing compassion for all, even those
who wish us evil, we are to aim at imitating our heavenly Father.
God’s compassion is all-embracing. His love reaches out to
all without any discrimination between saint and sinner. Like the rain and sun
which fall equally on all, so God’s compassion and mercy are extended to all.
We, too, are being called to follow the example of our God and of Jesus his
Son. We remember the words of Jesus as he was being nailed to the cross:
Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are
doing. (Luke 23:34)
Here is the compassion of God being expressed in an extreme
situation. These same words will be repeated by Stephen when he is being stoned
to death.
In today’s Gospel, we are told to follow that compassion by
not sitting in judgement on others. That in no way means that we are to be
blind to the genuine faults of others. But we are not in a position to take the
higher moral ground so that we can sit in judgement on the supposed wrongdoer.
If we are honest, we know we judge others a lot—often with
very little evidence and even less compassion. Our media, too, are full of
judgment. Our conversations, our gossip is full of judgment. We lack compassion
for the weaknesses of our brothers and sisters.
At the same time, we do very little to help them correct
their ways; in fact, they seldom hear the criticisms we make. It is most often
done behind their backs. If they unexpectedly appear, we quickly change the
subject. We seem to take pleasure in the backbiting. We might even be
disappointed if they reformed! Yet Jesus tells us:
…do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive,
and you will be forgiven.
Before receiving the Eucharist we pray,
Forgive us our sins as we forgive the sins of others.
This is a dangerous prayer to make, yet it trips so easily
off our tongues, the same tongues that can be so critical and judgemental.
The Gospel calls for great generosity in our relationship
with others. Not just material generosity, but generosity in love, in
understanding, in tolerance and acceptance, in compassion and forgiveness. The
more generous we are with others the more we will receive in return. And so we
pray:
Lord, teach me to be generous,
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labour and to seek no reward
save that of knowing that I do your holy will.
Amen.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/l1022g/
Season of Lent
Opening Prayer
Just and holy
God, our loving Father,
you offered us Your hand in friendship,
and You sent us Your Son Jesus to go with us on the road of obedience and
loyalty. God, we often hurt this friendship, we act as if we were not Your sons
and daughters. See the look of shame on our faces.
Forgive us, for we count on You.
Accept our thanks for continuing to take us as we are and loving us
notwithstanding our sins. We ask You this through Christ our Lord.
Gospel Reading - Luke 6: 36-38
Jesus said to his disciples:
"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. "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.
For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to
you."
Reflection
•
These three brief verses of today’s Gospel (Lk 6:36-38)
are the final part of a brief discourse of Jesus (Lk 6: 20-38). In the first
part of His discourse, He addresses Himself to the disciples (Lk 6: 20) and to
the rich (Lk 6: 24) proclaiming four
beatitudes for the disciples (Lk 6: 20-23), and four curses for the rich (Lk 6:
20-26). In the second part, He addresses Himself to all those who are listening
(Lk 6: 27), that is, the immense crowd of poor and sick, who had come from all
parts (Lk 6:17-19). The words which He addresses to this people and to all of
us are demanding and difficult: to love the enemy (Lk 6, 27), not curse them
(Lk 6: 28), offer the other cheek to the one who slaps you on one, and do not
complain if someone takes what is ours (Lk 6: 29). How can this difficult
advice be understood? The explanation is given in the three verses of today’s
Gospel from which we draw the center of the Good News brought by Jesus.
•
Luke 6: 36: Be merciful as your Heavenly Father is
merciful. The Beatitudes for the disciples (Lk 6: 20-23) and the curses against
the rich (Lk 6: 24-26) cannot be interpreted as an occasion for the poor to
take revenge against the rich. Jesus orders us to have the contrary attitude.
He says: Love your enemies! (Lk 6: 27). The change which Jesus wants to bring
about in us does not consist in merely changing something to invert the system,
because in this way nothing would change. He wants to change the system. The
idea which Jesus wants to portray comes from the new experience that He has of
God the Father, full of tenderness, who accepts all, good and bad, who makes
the sunshine on both the good and on the bad and makes the rain fall on both
good and bad (Mt 5: 5, 45). True love does not depend, nor can it depend, on
what I receive from others. Love must want the good of the other independently
of what he does for me. Because this is how God’s love is for us. He is
merciful not only toward those who are good, but with all, even with the
ungrateful and the evil (Lk 6: 35). The disciples of Jesus should radiate this
merciful love.
•
Luke 6: 37-38: Do not judge and you will not be judged.
These last words repeat in a clearer way what Jesus had said before: Treat
others as you would like them to treat you (Lk 6: 31; cf. Mt 7: 12). If you do
not want to be judged, do not judge! If you do not want to be condemned, do not
condemn. If you want to be forgiven, then forgive! If you want to receive a
good measure, give this good measure to others! Do not wait for the other one
to take the initiative. You take it and begin now! You will see that it is like
this.
Personal Questions
•
Lent is a time of conversion. Which is the conversion
which today’s Gospel is asking of me?
•
Have you already been merciful as the Heavenly Father is?
What are my limits in being merciful and forgiving?
Concluding Prayer
Help us, God
our Savior, for the glory of Your name; Yahweh, wipe away our sins, rescue us
for the sake of Your name. (Ps 79: 9)
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