TUESDAY OF 16th WEEK ORDINARY TIME
Micah 7: 14 – 15, 18 – 20; Ps 85; Matthew 12: 46 – 50
A provocative question about God arises a few times in the Sacred Scriptures: “O Lord, who is like to you among the gods?” I believe the question, a good question, arises from a profound insight into the Divine Mystery or perhaps, from a very personal experience of God’s presence, His embrace. Through the question and by the Spirit of God we are moved to draw closer, to deepen this special friendship.
Of course, the answer to the question; “No one is like to You!” How could there be? If taken up, it does provide a graced invitation to reflect, to savor, to seek to enter more deeply into the very Mystery of our God.
In the reading from the prophet Micah there are truths that raise the question: “Who is like you?” It is a kind of litany of Divine Mercy:
“Who delights in clemency,
will again have compassion,
treading underfoot our guilt,
casting into the depths of the sea all our sins…”
Notice the expanse of this mercy: “You will cast into the depths of the sea ALL our sins – no matter how many, whether from foolishness, from weakness, from willful deliberate choice – all our sins. Such is our God – and there is no other! In His magnanimous love and mercy He desires each one of us to know this mercy and to spend eternity in His embrace. He desires that nothing stands in the way of His desire – nothing.
Until we humbly hand over our sins to the Lord, He is powerless; He patiently awaits us, such is His mercy. Only when we humbly acknowledge our sins with contrition with the desire to amend our ways, can our God delight in casting them into the depths of the sea. But it does not end there; God fills the space the sins arrogantly usurped with His merciful presence so that He fully abides in us. To whom we can honestly and gratefully say: “Who is like You, my God?”
Comments are closed.