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Theo Tigno•
3/20/2011 5:43 pm
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Monday in the Second Week of Lent |
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."
Dawg's Thought:
Today's prayer intention - for those who are suffering from cancer.
Today while I was having lunch, I sent a text message to myself after having a "realization":
"All to often we think of sacrifice as giving up something versus realizing that to sacrifice itself is gift?"
One of the things that we are called "give / offer" is mercy. When I was a child, I thought of it more as a game in which you said "mercy" when your hands were in too much pain. It was almost as if saying mercy meant that I couldn't handle the pain. Turned around, it was as if mercy was something that you offered to someone who was in pain. I thought if mercy as giving money to the poor, giving to a friend who got hurt, and other various ways of "giving" as a solution to pain.
The concept of mercy that Jesus offers us seems much more encompassing and challenging versus merely "giving" materially. He invites to be merciful interiorly as well as externally ... to "give" the interior judgments and condemnations to Our Lord Who is merciful. He invites us to "sacrifice" not only our material treasure, but also ways in which we can use mercy to make ourselves "better than" the recipient. After all, why would you "judge" or "condemn" someone unless you were trying to make yourself out to be "better than" them?
If we had a true disposition to who we are in the light of God, wouldn't it truly "lighten our load" to have to prove our self worth? Isn't our dignity tied to being a child of God? If this is the case, then shouldn't our desire to be "known" be a call to action to turn to Our Father versus dehumanizing others?
If this truly will lighten our load, then I gladly accept this "gift" we are invited to share.
Take care and God Bless.
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