March 2, 2026
Monday of the Second Week of
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
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/030226.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 sorry 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/
LECTIO DIVINA
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)
