Living for God is living for the other!

Listening to God is living for God

THE WORD IN LENT 2026 - MONDAY SECOND WEEK

March 02 - Daniel 9: 4-10; Luke 6: 36-38

Listening to God is living for God - that is what the Word of God emphatically established yesterday. We were called to let go, let God and live for God... living for God is the core of the message today. But living for God is not so easy, as the first reading tells us today: we have not listened to your servants, we have sinned, we have done wrong! But our faithfulness does not depend on our capacity, it depends on the Integrity of the Lord! 

We continue to walk with the Lord not because of our merit, but because of the integrity of the Lord. That is why we pray in the responsorial - Lord do not deal with us as our sins deserve, but according to your mercy, to your integrity. It is this that saves us from an eternal damnation, because God is merciful, loving and forgiving. That is the grace to which we appeal and that demands that we do the same to the other who appeals to us, for the amount we measure out will be the amount we will be given back. 

The key is, living for God is actually living for the other. The Other here is anyone who appeals to us - in their need, in their weaknesses, in their vulnerability, in their fallenness, in their inability, in their repeated failures. Are we ready to pardon them, accept them and embrace them? If so, we are disposing ourselves to the same pardon, acceptance and embrace of the Lord. When we opine that the other does not deserve our graciousness, we are deciding too that we have to be dealt with how we deserve to be, how our sins and our failures deserve to be death with. Is that not alarming?

The Word today has a simple but challenging call: do unto others what you want done unto to you! If you wish to live for God, begin with living for the other.