The Infinite Mercy of God

In today's first reading, Micah 7:L 14-15, 18-20, Micah stands in awe of our God, asking: "who is there like you, the God who removes guilt and pardons sin for the remnant of his inheritance, who does not persist in anger forever, but delights in clemency, and will again have compassion on us, treading underfoot our guilt?"

The mercy of our God is brought home to us again in today's Gospel, Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32, in the story of the Prodigal Son.  That parable features a father whose son squandered his inheritance on a promiscuous lifestyle and faced starvation when a famine struck the land.  So "he hired himself out to one of the local citizens who sent him to his farm to tend the swine. ...[H]e longed to eat his fill of the pods on which the swine fed, but nobody gave him any. Coming to his senses he thought, 'How many of my father's hired workers have more than enough food to eat, but here I am dying from hunger.'"  Desperate, he returns to  his father's house and is determined to say to his father: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as your would one of your hired workers."  His father sees him coming from afar and excitedly asks his servants to prepare a banquet for his son, to clothe him in the best of clothing, to put a ring on  his finger and slaughter a fattened calf. He welcomes him back with open arms and celebrates to the chagrin of his older son, who is furious at his father for showing mercy to his brother. When his father asks him to come in and join the celebration, he angrily says to his father: ""Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when you son returns who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf.'" 

How many of us are into rigid obedience to laws and use the law to condemn our brothers and sisters? The law does not save us; it gives us what we think is our right to judge others.  Jesus teaches otherwise. When a disciple asked Jesus what more he needed to do to enter heaven, Jesus answers him with the story of the Good Samaritan and says to him: "Go and do likewise. It is mercy that I want of you."