THE WORDBECAME FLESH

Monday of the Second Week of Lent, 2023 

Dan 9:4b-10

Ps 79

Luke 6:36-38

Be merciful...

If you were listening to this morning’s first reading (Dn 9:4b-10), you may have been struck by the note of confession in it. It was a communal prayer of confession. The whole people were acknowledging their sinfulness before God. ‘We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly, we have betrayed your commandments… we have not listened to the voice of the Lord our God’. This public act of confession on the part of the people of Israel is one that we, the church, can easily make our own. We know that we too have failed, as individuals and as a community. 

Yet, it is to such individuals and to such a community that the Lord issues the challenging invitation in this morning’s gospel reading Lk 6:36-38), ‘Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate’. Jesus is calling on us to be nothing less than God-like. He knows of what we are made; he knows that we are prone to sin, and, yet, he keeps calling us towards the highest ideals. He continues to give us a calling in keeping with our identity as people made in the image of God. He pays us the compliment of putting a noble calling before us, despite our repeated failures. He also gives us the means to respond to that calling, by pouring the Holy Spirit into our hearts. He gives us a great resource as well as a great calling. We pray that we would especially draw on that resource this Lent so that we may be faithful to our calling.

Let us pray: Father, teach me to know the truth and speak it in love and compassion. Amen

+Remain blessed