June 27, 2025
Solemnity of Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
Lectionary: 172
Reading 1
Thus says the Lord GOD:
I myself will look after and tend my sheep.
As a shepherd tends his flock
when he finds himself among his scattered sheep,
so will I tend my sheep.
I will rescue them from every place where they were scattered
when it was cloudy and dark.
I will lead them out from among the peoples
and gather them from the foreign lands;
I will bring them back to their own country
and pasture them upon the mountains of Israel
in the land's ravines and all its inhabited places.
In good pastures will I pasture them,
and on the mountain heights of Israel
shall be their grazing ground.
There they shall lie down on good grazing ground,
and in rich pastures shall they be pastured
on the mountains of Israel.
I myself will pasture my sheep;
I myself will give them rest, says the Lord GOD.
The lost I will seek out,
the strayed I will bring back,
the injured I will bind up,
the sick I will heal,
but the sleek and the strong I will destroy,
shepherding them rightly.
Responsorial Psalm
R.(1) The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I
shall want.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
In verdant pastures he gives me repose;
beside restful waters he leads me;
he refreshes my soul.
R. The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
He guides me in right paths
for his name's sake.
Even though I walk in the dark valley
I fear no evil; for you are at my side
with your rod and your staff
that give me courage.
R. The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
You spread the table before me
in the sight of my foes;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
R. The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
Only goodness and kindness follow me
all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
for years to come.
R. The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.
Reading 2
Brothers and sisters:
The love of God has been poured out into our hearts
through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
For Christ, while we were still helpless,
died at the appointed time for the ungodly.
Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person,
though perhaps for a good person
one might even find courage to die.
But God proves his love for us
in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.
How much more then, since we are now justified by his blood,
will we be saved through him from the wrath.
Indeed, if, while we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son,
how much more, once reconciled,
will we be saved by his life.
Not only that,
but we also boast of God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Take my yoke upon you, says the Lord,
and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Or
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
I am the good shepherd, says the Lord,
I know my sheep, and mine know me.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus addressed this parable to the Pharisees and scribes:
"What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them
would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert
and go after the lost one until he finds it?
And when he does find it,
he sets it on his shoulders with great joy
and, upon his arrival home,
he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them,
'Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.'
I tell you, in just the same way
there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents
than over ninety-nine righteous people
who have no need of repentance."
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062725.cfm
The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
Today we celebrate The Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of
Jesus. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is a devotional with long and historic
provenance within Christianity, and in modern times has been established as a
Solemnity for the universal Church.
Catechism of the Catholic Church 478:
"Jesus knew and loved us each and all during his life, his agony and his
Passion, and gave himself up for each one of us: "The Son of God. . .
loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal 2:20). He has loved us all with a
human heart. For this reason, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by our sins
and for our salvation (Cf. Jn 19:34), "is quite rightly considered the
chief sign and symbol of that. . . love with which the divine Redeemer
continually loves the eternal Father and all human beings" without
exception (Pius XII, Enc. Haurietis aquas (1956): DS 3924; cf.
DS 3812).
Today is the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of
Jesus, designated the Friday after the Second Sunday after Pentecost
(Corpus Christi Sunday). Sixteenth century Calvinism and seventeenth century
Jansenism preached a distorted Christianity that substituted for God's love and
sacrifice of His Son for all men the fearful idea that a whole section of
humanity was inexorably damned.
The Church always countered this view with the infinite love
of our Savior who died on the cross for all men. The institution of the feast
of the Sacred Heart was soon to contribute to the creation among the faithful
of a powerful current of devotion which since then has grown steadily stronger.
The first Office and Mass of the Sacred Heart were composed by St. John Eudes,
but the institution of the feast was a result of the appearances of our Lord to
St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in 1675. The celebration of the feast was extended
to the General Roman Calendar of the Church by Pius IX in 1856.
Today is the World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests. The
World Day of Prayer for the Sanctification of Priests takes place every year on
the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The Solemnity was first celebrated in France. The liturgy
was approved by the local bishop at the behest of St. John Eudes, who celebrated
the Mass on August 31, 1670. The celebration was quickly adopted in other
places in France. In 1856, Pope Pius IX established the Feast of the Sacred
Heart as obligatory for the whole Church.
But the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is much older.
The beginnings of a devotion of the love of God symbolized by the heart of
Jesus are found in the fathers of the Church, including Origen, St. Ambrose,
St. Jerome, St. Augustine of Hippo, St. Hippolytus of Rome, St. Irenaeus, St.
Justin Martyr, and St. Cyprian. In the 11th century this devotion found a
renewal in the writings of Benedictine and Cistercian monasteries. In the 13th
century, the Franciscan St. Bonaventure’s work “With You is the Source of Life”
(which is the reading for the Divine Office on the Solemnity of the Sacred
Heart) began to point to the heart as the fountain from which God’s love poured
into our lives. Also in the 13th century, there was the “Vitis Mystica” (the
mystical vine) a lengthy devotional to Jesus, which vividly describes the
“Sacred Heart” of Jesus as the font and fullness of love poured into the world.
This work is anonymous, but most often attributed to St. Bonaventure.
At the end of the 13th century, St. Gertrude, on the feast
of St. John the Evangelist, had a vision in which she was allowed to rest her
head near the wound in the Savior’s side. She heard the beating of the Divine
Heart and asked John if, on the night of the Last Supper, he too had felt this
beating heart, why then had he never spoken of the fact. John replied that this
revelation had been reserved for subsequent ages when the world, having grown
cold, would have need to rekindle its love.
In the late 17th century the devotion was renewed and
adopted elsewhere, especially following the revelations to St. Marguerite Marie
Alacoque. The saint, a cloistered nun of the Visitation Order, received several
private revelations of the Sacred Heart, the first on December 27, 1673, and
the final one 18 months later. The stained glass window centered in the sanctuary
dome recalls the Saint and her vision.
Initially discouraged in her efforts to follow the
instruction she had received in her visions, Alacoque was eventually able to
convince her superior of the authenticity of her visions. She was unable,
however, to convince a group of theologians of the validity of her apparitions,
nor was she any more successful with many of the members of her own community.
She eventually received the support of the community’s confessor who declared
that the visions were genuine. Alacoque’s short devotional writing, “La
Devotion au Sacré-Coeur de Jesus” (Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus), was
published posthumously in 1698. The devotion was fostered by the Jesuits and
Franciscans, but it was not until the 1928 encyclical “Miserentissimus
Redemptor” by Pope Pius XI that the Church validated the credibility of
Alacoque’s visions of Jesus Christ in having “promised her [Alacoque] that all
those who rendered this honor to His Heart would be endowed with an abundance
of heavenly graces.”
In the late 19th century, Sr. Mary of the Divine Heart
received a message from Christ. This eventually led the 1899 encyclical letter
Annum Sacrum in which Leo XIII decreed that the consecration of the entire
human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus should take place on June 11, 1899.
On the 100th anniversary of the Feast of the Sacred Heart in
a landmark encyclical, Haurietis aquas (Latin: “You will draw
waters”; written May 15, 1956), Pope Pius XII began his reflection by drawing
from Isaiah 12:3, a verse which alludes to the abundance of the supernatural
graces which flow from the heart of Christ. Haurietis aquas called the whole
Church to recognize the Sacred Heart as an important dimension of Christian
spirituality. Pius XII gave two reasons why the Church gives the highest form
of worship to the Heart of Jesus. The first rests on the principle whereby the
believers recognize that Jesus’ Heart is hypostatically united to the “Person
of the Incarnate Son of God Himself.” The second reason is derived from the
fact that the Heart is the natural sign and symbol of Jesus’ boundless love for
humans. The encyclical recalls that for human souls the wound in Christ’s side
and the marks left by the nails have been “the chief sign and symbol of that
love” that ever more incisively shaped their life from within.
In a letter on May 15, 2006, Benedict XVI wrote: “By
encouraging devotion to the Heart of Jesus, [we exhort] believers to open
themselves to the mystery of God and of his love and to allow themselves to be
transformed by it. After 50 years, it is still a fitting task for Christians to
continue to deepen their relationship with the Heart of Jesus, in such a way as
to revive their faith in the saving love of God and to welcome Him ever better
into their lives.
As the encyclical states, from
this source, the Heart of Jesus, originates the true knowledge of Jesus Christ
and a deeper experience of His love. Thus, according to Benedict XVI, we will
be able to understand better what it means to know God’s love in Jesus Christ,
to experience Him, keeping our gaze fixed on Him to the point that we live
entirely on the experience of His love, so that we can subsequently witness to
it to others.
—Excerpted from Friar Musings
Friday,
June 27, 2025
The Most
Sacred Heart of Jesus
Opening Prayer
My Father, I come before You
today with a sorrowful heart, because I know I am among the number of those,
who even though they are sinners, believe to be just. I feel within myself the
weight of my heart made of rock and of iron. Today, I would also like to be
among those who get close to Your Son to listen to Him; I would like to stop
doing like the Pharisees and the scribes who, before Your love, murmur and
criticize.
I beg You, my Lord, touch my heart with Your words,
with Your presence and win it over with only a look, with only one of Your
caresses. Take me to Your table, so that I may also eat Your good bread, or
even just the crumbs, Your Son Jesus, grain of wheat, who became spike and
nourishment of salvation. Do not leave me outside, but allow me to enter to the
table of Your mercy. Amen.
Gospel Reading – Luke 15: 3-7
Text:
Jesus addressed this parable to the Pharisees and
scribes: "What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them
would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until
he finds it? And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great
joy and, upon his arrival home, he calls together his friends and neighbors and
says to them, 'Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.' I tell you,
in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who
repents than over ninetynine righteous people who have no need of
repentance." The Context:
This brief passage constitutes only the
beginning of the great chapter 15 of the Gospel of Luke, a very central
chapter, almost in the heart of the Gospel and of its message. Here, in fact,
are enclosed the three accounts of the mercy, like only one parable: the sheep,
the coin, and the son, are an image of one only reality, they bear in
themselves all the richness and the preciousness of man before God’s eyes, the
Father. Here is the last significance of the Incarnation and of the life of
Christ in the world: the salvation of all, Jews and Greeks, slaves or free, men
or women. Nobody should remain outside the banquet of mercy.
In fact, precisely the previous chapter to
this one narrates the invitation to the table of the king and also gives to us
this call: “Come, everything is ready!” God is waiting for us, next to the
place that He has prepared for us, so that we can be His guests, so as to make
us also participate in His joy. The
Structure:
Verse 3 is the introduction and connects us
with the previous situation, that is, the one in which Luke describes the
joyful movement, of love and conversion, of the sinners and publicans, who
without fear, continue to get close to Jesus to listen to Him. It is here that
the murmuring, the anger, the criticism are triggered and therefore, the
refusal of the Pharisees and the scribes, convinced of having in themselves
justice and truth.
Therefore, the parable that follows, which is
structured in three accounts, wants to be the response of Jesus to this
murmuring; in last instance, the response to our criticism, to our grumbling
and mumbling against Him and His inexplicable love.
Verse 4 begins with a rhetorical question, which already
presupposes a negative response: nobody would act as the Good Shepherd, as
Christ. It is precisely there, in His behavior, in His love for us, for all,
where His truth is. Verses 5 and 6 tell the story. They describe the actions,
the sentiments of the shepherd: his search, his fatigue, his joy which become
tenderness and care for the sheep that has been found, the sharing of this joy
with the friends. At the end, with verse 7, Luke wants to depict the face of
God, personified in Heaven: He anxiously waits for the return of all His
children. He is a God, a Father who loves sinners, who recognize themselves in
need of His mercy, of His embrace and He cannot be pleased with those who
believe themselves to be just and remain far away from Him.
Meditate on the Word
A Moment of Prayerful Silence:
Now,
as the publican and the sinners, I also desire to get close to the Lord Jesus
to listen to His words, to pay attention with heart and mind, to everything
which He wants to tell me. Then, I open myself, I allow myself to be reached by
His voice, by His look on me, which reaches to the depth of my being… Some Ways to Deepen:
“Which one among you?”
It is necessary to begin with
this strong question of Jesus, addressed to His interlocutors at that moment,
but also addressed to us today. We are seriously placed before ourselves, to
understand who we are, how we are in the depth of ourselves. “Who is a true man
among us?” says Jesus. Like a few verses further down He will say, “Which
woman?” It is more or less the same question which the Psalmist asked, when he
said: “What is man?” (8: 5) and which Job repeated, speaking with God, “What is
this man?” (7: 17).
Therefore, here, in this brief account of Jesus, in this
parable of the mercy, we find the truth: we understand who is truly a man among
us. But in order to do this, it is necessary that we encounter God, hidden in
these verses, because we must confront ourselves with Him, we must mirror
ourselves in Him and find ourselves. The behavior of the shepherd with his
sheep tells us what we should do, how we should be and reveals to us how we are
in reality, it shows us our nakedness and our wounds, our profound sickness.
We, who believe that we are gods, we are not even human beings. Let us see why…
"Ninety nine – one”
Behold that God’s light
immediately places us in confrontation with a very strong reality, shocking for
us. In this Gospel we find, a flock, one as many others, quite numerous,
perhaps belonging to a wealthy man: one hundred sheep: a perfect, symbolic,
divine number. The fullness of the children of God, all of us, each one, one by
one, nobody can remain excluded. But in this reality, an unthinkable thing
happens: a great, unbalanced maximum division is created: on the one hand 99
sheep and on the other only one. There is no acceptable proportion here. And
just the same these are God’s ways. Immediately we think and ask ourselves, to
which group do we belong? Are we among the 99? Or are we that only one, that is
alone, so great, so important so as to be the counterpart of the rest of the
flock?
Let us look attentively to the text. The only
sheep, the one alone, immediately emerges from the group because it is lost,
gets lost, in one word, lives a negative experience, a dangerous one, perhaps
even a mortal one, but, surprisingly, the shepherd does not allow it to leave
like that. He does not wash his hands; rather, he abandons the others, who had
remained with him, and goes to look for it. Is such a thing possible? Can an
abandonment of this dimension be justified? Here we began to enter into crisis,
because surely it came spontaneously to us to classify ourselves as being among
the 99, who remained faithful. Instead, the shepherd goes and runs in search of
the bad one, the one which did not merit anything, but only the solicitude and
the abandonment which it sought for itself.
Then what happens? The shepherd does not give
up immediately. He does not even think of returning or going back. He does not
seem to be concerned about his other sheep, the 99. The text says that he “goes
“on” after the lost one, until he finds it.” The preposition is most
interesting, “on”, it seems almost a picture of the shepherd who bends down
with the heart, with the thought, with the body, on that only sheep. He
searches the land, seeks for the prints, which he most surely knows and which
he has engraved on his hands (Isa 49: 16); he questions the silence, to hear if
there is still an echo of its bleating at a distance. He calls it by name, he
repeats the conventional sign, the one with which each day he has welcomed and
accompanied it. And finally, he finds it. Yes, it could not be otherwise, but
there is no punishment, no violence, no harshness. Only an infinite love and an
overflowing joy. Luke says: “He places it on his shoulders very happily…” He
rejoices and celebrates at home with his friends and neighbors. The text does
not even say if the shepherd returned to the desert to take back the other 99
sheep.
Before all this, it is clear, very clear,
that we should be that only one, that sheep which was alone, loved so much,
preferred in that way. We should recognize that if we are lost, that we have
sinned, that without the shepherd we are nothing. This is the great passage
that the word of the Gospel calls us to fulfill, today: to free ourselves from
the weight of our presumed justice, to remove or set aside the yoke of our
self-sufficiency and also that we place ourselves on the side of sinners, of
the impure, of robbers.
Behold why Jesus begins by asking us, “Which man among you?”
“In the desert”
This is the place of the just, of
those who believe that they are right, without sin, without a stain. They have
not as yet entered into the Promised Land. They are outside, far away, excluded
from the joy, from the mercy. Like those who have not accepted the invitation
to the banquet of the king and who withdrew, some with one excuse, others with
another.
We are in the desert and not in the house,
just like the only one. Not at the table of the shepherd, where there is good
and substantial bread, where there is the wine which rejoices the heart. The
table prepared by the Lord: His Body and His Blood, where the Shepherd becomes
Himself the sheep, the immolated Lamb, nourishment of life.
He who does not love his brother, who does not open his heart
to mercy, as the
Shepherd of the flock does, cannot enter into
the house, but remains outside. The desert is his inheritance, his dwelling
place, and in the desert there is no food, no water, no pasture, nor enclosure
for the sheep.
Jesus eats together with sinners, with the
publicans, with the prostitutes, with the least, the excluded and prepares the
table, His banquet, with rich dishes, excellent wine, and tasty food (Isa 25:
6). He also invites us to this table. Interesting
Parallel Passages:
•
2 Samuel 12: 1-4:
In the same town were two men, one rich, the other poor.
The rich man had flocks and herds in great abundance; the poor man had nothing
but a ewe lamb, only a single little one which he had bought. He fostered it
and it grew up with him and his children, eating his bread, drinking from his
cup, sleeping in his arms; it was like a daughter to him….. Matthew 9: 10-13:
Now while he was at table in the
house it happened that a number of tax collectors and sinners came to sit at
the table with Jesus and His disciples. 11
When
the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, "Why does your master
eat with tax collectors and sinners?' 12 When He heard this He replied, 'It is
not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. 13 Go and learn the meaning
of the words: Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice. And indeed, I came to
call not the upright, but sinners.'"
•
Luke 19: 1-10:
Zacchaeus
•
Luke 7: 39:
When the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he said to
himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who this woman is and
what sort of person it is who is touching him and what a bad name she
has."
•
Luke 5: 27-32:
When He went out after this, He noticed a tax collector,
Levi by name, sitting at the tax office, and said to him, "Follow
me." And leaving everything Levi got up and followed Him. In His honor
Levi held a great reception in his house, and with them at table was a large
gathering of tax collectors and others. The Pharisees and their scribes
complained to His disciples and said, "Why do you eat and drink with tax
collectors and sinners?" Jesus said to them in reply, "It is not
those that are well who need the doctor, but the sick. I have come to call not
the upright but sinners to repentance."
•
Matthew 21: 31-32:
Jesus said to them, "In truth I tell you, tax
collectors and prostitutes are making their way into the kingdom of God before
you. For John came to you, showing the way of uprightness, but you did not
believe him, and yet the tax collectors and prostitutes did. Even after seeing
that, you refused to think better of it and believe in him.’
Brief Comments of the Spiritual Tradition
of Carmel: S. Therese of the Child Jesus:
Speaking of Father Giacinto
Loyson, who had left the Carmelite Order and then abandoned the Church, Therese
writes to Celine as follows: “It is certain that Jesus desires much more than
we do to lead back this poor lost sheep to the flock…” (L 129). “Jesus deprives
His sheep of His sensible presence, in order to give His consolation to
sinners…” (L 142).
Speaking about Pranzini, of whom
she had read his conversion at the supreme moment, just before his execution,
when taking the crucifix, he kissed the holy wounds, she writes, “Then his soul
went to receive the merciful sentence of the One who declares that in Heaven
there will be greater joy for one sinner alone who does penance than for 99
just ones who do not need to do penance…” (MA
46 r).
Blessed Elizabeth:
“The priest in the confessional
is the minister of this God who is so good, who leaves his 99 faithful sheep to
run and look for the one alone which got lost…” Diary, 13/03/1899).
Saint John of the Cross:
“His desire was so great that the Spouse would
liberate and redeem his spouse from the hands of sensuality and of the devil,
that having accomplished this, he rejoices like the good Shepherd who, after
having gone around very much, he finds the lost sheep and with great joy places
it on his shoulders” (CB XXI, Annotation)
The Word and Life
Some questions:
•
“… having lost only one of them…” The Gospel
immediately calls our attention to the strong and painful reality of getting
lost, of the loss. That one sheep of the flock stranded away from the road,
separated from the others. It is not a question only of an event, something
that happened, but rather it is a characteristic of the sheep; in fact, in
verse 6 it is called "the lost one", almost as if this was its true
name.
•
Here is the starting point, the truth. It is
speaking about us. We are the dispersed sons, the lost ones, the erring ones,
that is, the sinners, the publicans. It is useless to continue to believe that
we are just, to consider ourselves better than others, worthy of the Kingdom,
of God’s presence, almost with the right to grumble, to murmur against Jesus
who, instead, pays attention to those who make a mistake. I should ask myself,
before this Gospel, if I am ready to fulfill or go through this profound course
of conversion, of a very strong interior revision. I must decide myself on
which side I want to be: if to allow myself to be carried on the shoulders of
the shepherd or to remain at a distance, that is, alone, with my own justice.
But if I do not know how to use mercy, if I do not know how to accept, to
forgive, to esteem, how can I expect all this for myself?
•
“…the 99 in the desert…” I should open the eyes
on this reality: the desert. Where do I believe that I am? Where do I live?
Where do I walk? Which are my pastures? Do I believe that I am secure, that I
dwell in the house of the Lord, among His faithful sons, but perhaps it is
truly like that. The Psalm says, “In grassy meadow, the Lord lets me lie.” But
do I feel that I am in this rest? Then, why am I so anxious, restless,
unsatisfied, always searching something more, better, greater? I look at my
life: is it not a bit of a desert? Where there is no love and compassion, where
I remain closed off to my brothers and sisters and I do not know how to accept
them as they are, with their limitations, with the errors that they commit, in
the sufferings that perhaps they inflict on me. There the desert begins, there
I am less and there I feel hungry and thirsty. This is the moment to allow my
heart to be changed: to recognize myself as miserable in order to become
merciful.
•
“… he goes after the lost sheep until he finds
it…” We have seen that the text describes very delicately the action of the
shepherd: he leaves behind all the sheep and goes to look for the only one
which is lost. The verb may seem a bit strange, but it is very effective. Like
Hosea says concerning God, that He speaks to His People whom He loves, like to
a spouse: “There I will speak to
her heart” (2:16). It is a movement,
it is being carried by love; a patient bending down, tenacious, which does not
give up, but which always insists. In fact, the true love is never diminished.
The Lord acts in this way towards each one of His sons and daughters. If I look
back, if I think about my own history, I become aware of how much love, how
much patience, how much pain, He has also experienced for me, to find me, to
give me back that which I wasted and lost. He has never abandoned me. I recognize
this, it is truly like that.
•
But, at this point, what do I do, with such
gratuitous love, such great love, overflowing love? If I keep it closed up in
my heart, it gets lost. It cannot be kept until the following day, like the
manna; otherwise it gets worms, it becomes rotten. Today, I have to hand it
over, distribute it. Look out, if I do not love. I try to think about my
attitude toward my brothers and sisters, those whom I meet every day, with whom
I share my life. How do I behave before them? At the least, am I similar in
some way to the beautiful shepherd, to the good shepherd, who goes out to seek,
who gets close to, who bends down with tenderness, attention, friendship, or
even with love? Or am I superficial, truly unconcerned about anybody, I leave
each one to make his own choice, to live his own sorrows, without being ready,
in any way, to share with him, to bear them together? What kind of a brother or
sister am I? What father or mother am I?
•
“Rejoice with me!” This passage ends with a
feast, which then becomes a true and proper banquet, according to the
description which Luke gives at the end of the parable. A king’s meal, a solemn
feast, with the best dishes, held apart, to fatten the animal, for the
occasion, with the most beautiful dresses, with shoes on the feet and the ring
on the finger, a joy which always becomes greater, which is contagious, a joy
together. This is the invitation which the Father, the King, addresses to us
every day, every morning; He desires that we also participate in His joy
because of the return of His sons, our brothers. Does this upset me, get me
angry? Would I rather want to remain peacefully, perhaps with a threatening
face of one who wants to settle the accounts with the errors, with the loss of
one or the other? Is my heart open? Is it ready for this joy of God? Or do I
prefer to remain outside, perhaps to recriminate or reproach what seems to me
not given, that is, the part of the patrimony which corresponds to me, the
special prize or reward to celebrate with whomever I wish? But I understand
well that if I do not enter now into God’s banquet, where the poor have been
invited, the limping, the cripple, the blind, those whom nobody wants; if I do
not participate in the common joy of mercy, I will remain outside forever, sad,
closed up in myself, in darkness and weeping, as the Gospel says.
The Word Becomes Prayer
Psalm 102: 1-4, 8-13
The Lord is
good and great in His love.
Bless Yahweh, my soul, from the
depths of my being, His holy name; bless Yahweh, my soul,
never forget all His acts of
kindness. He forgives all your offenses,
cures all your diseases,
He redeems your life from the abyss,
crowns you with faithful love and tenderness; Yahweh is tenderness and pity,
slow to anger and rich in
faithful love; His indignation does not last forever, nor His resentment remain
for all time; He does not treat us as our sins deserve, nor repay us as befits
our offenses. As the height of heaven above earth,
so strong is His faithful love for those who
fear Him. As the distance of east from west, so far from us does He put our
faults.
As tenderly as a father treats his children, so Yahweh treats
those who fear Him;
Final Prayer
Good and merciful Father, praise to You for Your love
which You have revealed to us in Christ, Your Son! You, merciful, call all to
become mercy. Help me to recognize that every day I need Your pardon, Your
compassion, that I need the love and understanding of my brothers and sisters.
May Your Word change my heart and make me capable of following Jesus, to go out
every day, together with Him to look for my brothers in love. Amen.
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