The WORD in LENT - Third week, Tuesday
March 14, 2023: Daniel 3: 25, 34-43; Matthew 18: 21-35
The Word today invites us to understand the identity of the Lord as "mercy". The Lord gives and forgives with an abundance of mercy; if not, we would die and perish. When the Lord offered us the greatest of all gifts, God's own image and likeness, God gave us the very nature that God beholds. We were made like God, hardly less than the angels! God gives and so we are called to give. God forgives and so we are called to forgive. God is merciful, and so we are called to be merciful too!
When we are not merciful, we become alien to ourselves - for two reasons! Firstly because we deny the very nature in which we were created, the mercy of our Creator. Secondly, because we deny the limitless mercy that we have received from God. In acting without mercy, we deny the mercy that we have received. Do we really deserve then to be called children of God, created in the image of God?
In refusing to be merciful, we turn not only ungodly but even inhuman! We ruin our peace, the peace of those around us and the peace of the humanity at large! A simple and single merciless act can be certainly correlated to the lost of world peace at the international and global level. When we are absolutely dedicated to being merciful in our limited and particular context, we have done our part in bringing peace to this world.
What matters is that we realise the image that we bear and strive to live up to that image! Let us forgive, not just a few times or just when it is convenient to us, but all the time, amidst whatever tribulations we might be in. That seems a needed message for the present times and that is the only way to peace, because peace is mercy!
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