God's Mercy as Role Modeling our Call to be Merciful

Today's readings are about mercy, being shown mercy by our God and being called to be merciful in relation to other human beings.  The Gospel, Matthew 18:21-35, reveals God's infinite mercy towards us in the parable of the king who forgives a debtor an amount of debt that he absolutely has no way of resolving.  Rather than following the king's example, this pardoned debtor exacts payment from someone who owes him a much lesser amount. He has him thrown into prison until he pays up!  That leads to the king revoking his pardon and exacting payment from the debtor, who in turn is also imprisoned until he pays the huge amount that he also owes.


We have choices! Forgiving others leads to personal, inner freedom. Exacting payment--holding on to resentments, harboring grudges, and punishing others for their "debts," however we choose to do that--leads to enslaving or imprisoning ourselves in our own anger states.  Furthermore, in the Our Father, we ask God to forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us. By not forgiving others who hurt us or owe us an apology, or whatever, we subject ourselves to God's justice, which is also infinite--what we mete out to others will be meted out to us!

In the responsorial psalm of today's liturgy, Psalm 25, we pray:  "Remember your mercies, O Lord."
That does not exonerate us from doing our part in acting mercifully toward others! Let us remember how merciful God is towards ourselves and, in turn, show mercy to our neighbors, near and far!

Trusting and Loving God to Dying for God's Sake

In today's responsorial psalm, Psalm 130, we pray:  I trust in the Lord; my soul trusts in his word." For me, trust and love are synonymous!  If I trust God, I love God. And if I love God, I trust God.

For me, Jesus, the new Adam,  models trust in God.  He said "yes" to God to the point of death on the cross.  The first Adam, on the other hand, says "no" to God, believing that in saying "no" to God  true freedom would be found. The opposite is true, and Jesus models that opposite, namely, that in saying "yes" to God we find freedom. It is in losing one's live that one saves it, Jesus teaches us, and in saving one's life that we lose it.  He also  teaches that the grain of wheat must die to bear fruit.  Every day we have opportunities to die to self, to lose ourselves,  to bury the "grain of wheat," for the sake of the other, giving our all for the sake of the common good, as Jesus gave His all on the cross and rose to new life, to wholeness, to ultimate freedom.

Am I willing to say "yes," that is, to die to self, as often as necessary each day and thus rise to new life, to a new sense of freedom?  Or am I a person who sets out each day to say "no," believing as Adam and Eve did, that by saying "no" I am free? Jesus said "yes" to dying on the cross and in that dying rose to new life, to new freedom, and showed us the depth,  the height, the width, and length of God's love. To what lengths, depths, heights, widths will I go to love as God loves?  Am I coming to realize that it is by saying "yes" to "losing one's life" that one "saves it" and that, yes, the grain of wheat needs to die to bear fruit that will last, a fruit that includes authentic freedom and a rising?