Monday of Week 2 of Lent – First Reading
Commentary on Daniel 9:4-10
The theme of the readings today is repentance; it is a prayer for God’s mercy and compassion. It is extraordinary that for over 1,000 years this prayer from the Book of Daniel has been read in today’s Lenten Mass. It is an excellent penance prayer—a national act of contrition describing God’s perfection and man’s imperfection. It is a prayer of sorrow and repentance for the many ways in which we have failed to listen to God and his messengers. It is a prayer which contains humility, worship, confession and petition:
…we have sinned and done wrong, acted wickedly and rebelled, [turned] aside from your commandments and ordinances. We have not listened to your servants the prophets…
And:
Righteousness is on your side, O Lord, but open shame, as at this day, falls on us…
So much of the time, these are not the words we hear from people’s lips—or our own. As soon as something goes wrong, we immediately start looking around for someone to blame.
Our media spend a great deal of time and space pointing fingers at others as the source of our troubles. We call it “scapegoating”. It is something we all indulge in to a greater or lesser extent. Just let us listen to a few people gossiping together over a pint or a cup of coffee.
Today’s reading calls on us to point the finger at ourselves and to be fully aware of how we have failed, have sinned, have rebelled—and have much to be sorry for. A good way to measure our sensitivity in this area might be to look at our confessions. When we do go, what do we confess to? Do we just throw out a few platitudinal admissions (e.g. ‘telling lies’, ‘distractions at prayers’, ‘losing our temper’), or do we go deep into the areas where we truly fail in our relationship with God, with others and with ourselves?
Perhaps we do not go to Confession at all because “we can’t think of anything to say”. At the same time, most of us would be very slow to reveal to others our inner thoughts and feelings because, to tell the truth, we are quite ashamed of them. Paradoxically, it is often the Saint, the one who is closest to God, who is most aware of his or her sinfulness and need for healing.
Lent is a time for conversion, renewal and change. It is a time for openness—especially with oneself. That cannot even begin to take place until we are aware of, and acknowledge in ourselves, the areas where that change has to take place.
And, having recognised our faults and the harm they have done to others and to ourselves in our relationship with God, we beg his mercy and compassion. And we know for certain that God’s mercy and compassion are guaranteed, once we open ourselves to him.
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Monday of Week 2 of Lent – Gospel
Commentary on Luke 6:36-38
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
This is the last sentence in Luke’s version of Jesus’ teaching on the need to love our enemies. We saw the Matthaean version last Saturday. There the passage ends with:
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
(Matt 5:48)
It is clear that in showing compassion for all, even those who wish us evil, we are to aim at imitating our heavenly Father.
God’s compassion is all-embracing. His love reaches out to all without any discrimination between saint and sinner. Like the rain and sun which fall equally on all, so God’s compassion and mercy are extended to all. We, too, are being called to follow the example of our God and of Jesus his Son. We remember the words of Jesus as he was being nailed to the cross:
Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. (Luke 23:34)
Here is the compassion of God being expressed in an extreme situation. These same words will be repeated by Stephen when he is being stoned to death.
In today’s Gospel, we are told to follow that compassion by not sitting in judgement on others. That in no way means that we are to be blind to the genuine faults of others. But we are not in a position to take the higher moral ground so that we can sit in judgement on the supposed wrongdoer.
If we are honest, we know we judge others a lot—often with very little evidence and even less compassion. Our media, too, are full of judgment. Our conversations, our gossip is full of judgment. We lack compassion for the weaknesses of our brothers and sisters.
At the same time, we do very little to help them correct their ways; in fact, they seldom hear the criticisms we make. It is most often done behind their backs. If they unexpectedly appear, we quickly change the subject. We seem to take pleasure in the backbiting. We might even be disappointed if they reformed! Yet Jesus tells us:
…do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
Before receiving the Eucharist we pray,
Forgive us our sins as we forgive the sins of others.
This is a dangerous prayer to make, yet it trips so easily off our tongues, the same tongues that can be so critical and judgemental.
The Gospel calls for great generosity in our relationship with others. Not just material generosity, but generosity in love, in understanding, in tolerance and acceptance, in compassion and forgiveness. The more generous we are with others the more we will receive in return. And so we pray:
Lord, teach me to be generous,
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labour and to seek no reward
save that of knowing that I do your holy will.
Amen.