In the first reading today, Daniel is begging the Lord to have mercy on the Israelite people despite their many sins and failures. This plea is also in the today’s psalm, which asks the Lord not to “remember not against us the iniquities of the past; may your compassion quickly come to us, for we are brought very low.” This has been a common theme throughout the first week of Lent: recognizing our failures and asking God to forgive us.

Jesus reminds us in the Gospel that the Father is merciful, and that we are called to be merciful like him. “For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.” If we do not love, if we do not have mercy, then how can we expect God to have mercy on us? Many parables have a similar message, and we even find it in the Our Father, where we ask God to “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

These words can strike fear into our hearts, because they force us to recognize that our salvation depends on how we treat others—and we are terrible to other people sometimes! While we must do our best, our best isn’t enough. We know that for man it is impossible to enter Heaven. Only God can bring us to Heaven. So let us ask God to help us forgive and have mercy on others, so that we might grow in these virtues, so that at the end of our days when we meet God we will be greeted with a God’s superabundant mercy and love that we tried to give to others.

(Sorry about this being late!)

Today’s Readings: Dan 9:4b-10; Ps 79:8, 9, 11 & 13; Lk 6:36-38