September 17
Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
“The Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion.”
Readings
Reflection
This week, in the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time, we consider the concepts of forgiveness and mercy. It is hard to think of a more important topic in God’s eyes than that of His children learning to treat one another with total and complete forgiveness for whatever wrongs we may have done to each other.
Our readings speak to the truths of mercy and forgiveness. Sirach tells us about the destructive power of anger and vengeance, noting that they take us farther away from the mercy of God. Jesus’ coming to earth as a human is all about mercy and gives us a path toward salvation, but only if we are able to emulate him in offering mercy to others. The fact is, that if we do not embrace God’s generous mercy, we not only shut off the fountain of mercy that comes to us from God, but we also bring even greater misery down on ourselves.
In the Gospel from Matthew, we see mercy in action, as well as a lack of mercy. After being relieved of his debt by his merciful master, a servant goes out and refuses to forgive another servant, putting him in prison. This lack of mercy on the part of the first servant causes his master to rescind the mercy he had shown him and putting him in jail. In the same way, God will show us mercy only if we show mercy to others around us.
We may have legitimate reasons for holding a grudge against someone who wronged us in our past. The point of our readings is that despite the legitimacy of our anger or bitterness, God wants us to show forgiveness and mercy to those who have harmed us. Somehow, we need to move away from our anger and find a way to forgive these people. It takes a lot of faith for us to trust that in the fullness of time, the Lord will avenge us, as He has promised to do. Let us always remember that it is part of God’s plan to reward those who are merciful and punish those who seek revenge for any wrong they may have experienced. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Peace,
Deacon Dare
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