Daily Meditations for Lent 2006

Mar. 13 - Monday

Luke 6:36-38

Readings

Yesterday we talked about how merciful and loving God is—to the point that our consciences really can be completely cleansed by the blood of Christ. Today, we want to talk about the other side of the equation: our call to be as merciful as God is.
At the Vespers service on the night before Pope John Paul II’s fiftieth anniversary Mass, the Holy Father asked an eighty-four-year-old Jesuit priest to preach. This priest told of how he was ordained in 1946, shortly before a Communist dictatorship took over in his country of Albania with ruthless persecution. Many priests were shot and died as martyrs for their faith, and he himself was arrested in 1947. He lived in solitary confinement for seventeen years, and for many more years in forced labor. His first prison was a lavatory in a village in the mountains. They forced him to strip and hung him with rope under his arms. Then his torturers took him down and kicked and beat him all night.

That night, in that place of torture, this priest felt the comforting presence of Jesus Christ all around him. And because of that experience, he never felt resentment for those who had abused him. He was finally released in 1989, at the age of seventy-nine. He says that after his release, he met one of his torturers in the street. Forgiving grace flowed from his heart. Instead of cursing this man, he took pity on him; he went to him and embraced him. What a reflection of God’s mercy and forgiveness in this world!

According to St. Luke, Jesus said, “Be merciful just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). But according to Matthew, he said, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). What a revolutionary thought! To forgive is to be like God. It’s to mirror his perfection to the world. The priest in the story above forgave not just in mere words but also in action. All of heaven rejoices, and untold grace flows into our hearts when we are able to do that.

Don’t miss out on that grace! Forgive. And watch the waterfall of God’s power flow!

“Jesus, help me to be like you, who always forgave, even as you hung on the cross. Help me to be merciful and forgiving with both words and actions, as you would have me forgive.”

posted by Thomas Cagurangan @ 8:26 PM