Thursday,
December 24, 2015
4th Week of Advent 1st Reading: 2 S 7:1-5,8-12,14,16Gospel: Luke 1:67-79 Zechariah,
l led with Holy Spirit, sang this canticle,“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has come and redeemed his people. (…) This is the work of the mercy of our God, who comes from on high as a rising sun shining on those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, and guiding our feet into the way of peace.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life
Experience)
Zechariah’s muteness was akin to the reformatting of a computer. His experience with the angel reformatted his life and he never taunted God’s ways again. His ?rst utterances were melodious praises to the Lord – a song ending with an acknowledgement that the Messiah would come to “guide our feet into the way of peace”.Today’s Gospel message on peace makes a timely conclusion to our discussion on mercy and compassion. St. Pope John XXIII wrote that Peace should be established on justice, among others. Pope Francis picked this up writing about justice in the light of mercy and compassion.
The following re1ections are based on his thoughts outlined in “Misericordiae Vultus”.
Justice is giving each one his due, and we have laws to ensure proper allocation. In the Bible, justice means obeying the Commandments of God, the judge of all. Jewish leaders later forgot that justice in Scriptures was conceived as total submission to the power of God and focused on the literal interpretation of the Law. “Faced with a vision of justice as the mere observance of the law that judges people simply bydividing them into two groups – the just and sinners – Jesus is bent on revealing the great gift of mercy that searches outsinners and o4ers them pardon and salvation” (MisericordiaeVultus, 20).
Jesus’ crusade was not a futile one because one Jew who dedicated his life to pursuing the justice of the law with zeal (cf. Phil 3:6) made a radical change about his concept of justice.
Placing faith ?rst before justice St. Paul learned that salvation was not about strict ful?llment of the law but aboutfaith in Jesus. Mercy and compassion should be greater than justice; ourlot would have been unimaginable had God stopped at exercising justice and withheld his mercy and compassion. “If God limited himself to only justice, he would cease to be God, and would instead be like human beings who ask merely that the law be respected” (Misericordiae Vultus, 21). Even if Christ will enter history again to guide our feet intothe way of peace, if our feet prefer to walk away from justicetempered by mercy and compassion, peace will remain elusive. – Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., DM. Email: [email protected]. Website: www.frdan.org.
May comment ka ba sa column ni Father Dan? May tanong ka ba sa kanya? I-type ang BANDERA REACT
Disclaimer: The comments uploaded on this site do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of management and owner of Bandera. We reserve the right to exclude comments that we deem to be inconsistent with our editorial standards.