Welcome to our day of the reflection for this Monday, March 2nd.
And today we have, again, throughout the Scriptures, the pervasive view of God, the Father,
is one of mercy, one of forgiveness, one of compassion.
And when I ask people, tell me about the God of the Old Testament.
And they always say, a God who's angry, wrathful, judging, and that is not what the picture
of God that emerges in Scripture really is, is at all.
And it's a false caricature of God, and that's what we have to keep you reminded of.
I'm just so struck as we go through the Lenten journey that the Word of God that keeps
coming to us and it's inviting us to repentance, that's inviting us to turn away from sin, is
not doing so out of fear and terror and threats, but out of an invitation of who God is and
his merciful, kind, loving, sacred heart.
And that should bring us to warm our hearts of stone and ice with God's mercy.
And that's really what's about.
And I love the reading from Daniel today, in Daniel 9, is a model for repentance and forgiveness.
And Daniel grows up as a ten-year-old Jerusalem falls to the Babylonians because of their
sin and wickedness, and he's swept up and taken as a captive to Babylon, and it would
be easy for Daniel to say, look, I was just a kid, I was just 10 when this happened, it's
And he could say, Lord, forgive our fathers, that older generation, because they were wicked,
they were bad, and we're judged for it.
But he says, Lord, have mercy on us, we strayed, we rebelled against you.
We forsook your ways, your laws, your covenant.
We failed to heed your prophets.
He includes himself in that, and that's really humility, and we need that kind of humility.
We could at least say, Lord, go fix that part of the church and go fix that person, and
we don't say, Lord, have mercy on us.
We have failed, we have sinned, and we have to recognize our own sin that we too are sinners
in the midst of a sinful people that need repentance and need healing.
So that's really important.
Daniel is a great model of humility for us.
And that's what we see too, again, in Psalm 79, you know, may your compassion come quickly
Notice the psalmist believes that God is compassionate, and you know, he sees that we
are his sheep, and it prays for God to deliver us, and to forgive us our sins.
And so, again, the picture of God is one of mercy and forgiveness.
And then today, in the gospel, Jesus tells us, the picture of our father, he talks about
who the father, God the father is, and that Old Testament God, and what does he say?
He says, be just like the God of the Old Testament, and you would say, wait a minute, if Jesus
tells us to be just like the God of the Old Testament, you know, and then he says, and
don't, you know, the hypocrisy of these teachers, these religious teachers do what they
teach, because they're teaching from the chair of Moses, they're teaching God's law.
But don't be dissuade that if your religious leaders are not zealous and holy, that doesn't
mean you shouldn't be holy, and that's a great warning that Jesus gives today.
We are all called to holiness, and we can't be off the hook, and we can't be half-hearted
just because somebody who leads us is that way, at whatever station in life they are.
We have to be holy and zealous, we're all called to it, and Jesus gives us the formula,
so let's follow him.
May the Lord bless and keep you.
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