Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
Also Read: Mass Readings for 23 February 2025 Sunday Reflection by Maryanne – 23 February 2025
Mercy: Given, Received, Acknowledged
There may be no greater Old Testament figure for the topic of mercy, which is the main theme of Jesus’s preaching in today’s Gospel, than that of David. Not only is he a great practitioner of mercy, as he shows in this scene with Saul in 1 Samuel 26, as well as a great recipient of mercy after his sin with Bathsheba and Uriah in 2 Samuel 11 and 12 respectively, but he is also the most aware of God’s mercy as shown in Psalm 51 as well as today’s Psalm 103…the Lord is kind and merciful indeed.
Immeasurable Mercy
Every other verse in today’s set of readings are just specific examples of God’s abundant mercy and instruction as to how we are supposed to participate in that mercy. Loving enemies, giving one’s cloak and tunic, lending money without expectation: none of these things fit within the model of self-preservation that gets one ahead in life. However, Jesus shows the heavenly pragmatism to this approach in life because this “measure” of mercy is also how we are going to be “measured” when our life is over. On the surface, this seems like just a delayed quid pro quo on an infinite scale. This reductive approach misses the point Jesus is trying to make about the nature of God and ourselves.
Mercy is as mercy does
It is not that God will hold our degree of mercy over our heads like a differently calibrated scale, it is because to the degree we practice mercy it will become a habit and internalized to our nature. We will be able to accept mercy because we have practiced it so much. Think back to David, he practiced mercy early in his life and it was not until much later, after he was in power as king, that he truly needed that mercy from God. The more we practice it now, when it seems not to benefit us, the more it will truly benefit us later when we really need it, because we will actually be able to accept it.
