March 18, 2019
Monday, 2nd Week of Lent
1st Reading: Dn 9:4b–10
Gospel: Lk 6:36–38
Jesus said to his disciples, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. “Don’t be a judge of others and you will not be judged; do not condemn and you will not be condemned; forgive and you will be forgiven; give and it will be given to you, and you will receive in your sack good measure, pressed down, full and running over. For the measure you give will be the measure you receive back.”
D@iGITAL-EXPERIENCE
(Daily Gospel in the Assimilated Life Experience)
A rich lady makes fun of her neighbor’s laundry hanging from an outdoor clothesline. She calls her own laundry woman to join her in mocking the neighbor. “Aren’t those clothes dirty? The rich lady banters. “But they looked dazzlingly white to me when I was down there a while ago”, the laundrywoman replies. Then the laundrywoman notices the dirty window screens. “Ma’am, those clothes are not dirty, your window screens are!”
The window represents paradigm. Our appreciation of reality will depend on the kind of paradigm we embrace. Those sporting pessimistic paradigms will always rant because everything appears negative to them. The optimistic ones see hope in all things. The same principle operates in the spiritual realm. In this realm paradigm is described as “the measure you measure with”. Today’s Gospel reading tells us that this measure will be the measure that God will use on us.
God will use our own measure because he cannot overwhelm us with his infinite capacities. Why did Jesus teach his disciples to pray, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us?” Isn’t he supposed to give in good measure, pressed down and flowing over? The reason is not hard to decipher. God cannot grant us more forgiveness than we can take. If we can only forgive that much God will take us from there. To grant us more forgiveness would be to give us an overdose of our own medicine.
This finds support in many Gospel parables. In Matthew 18:23-35, for example, the Master cancelled the huge debt of his servant. But this same servant maltreated a fellow servant for a much smaller debt and put that smalltime debtor into prison. The Master was badly shaken. He handed this unforgiving servant over to the torturers (Matthew 18:35). This otherwise debt-free servant became a debtor again. He descended to the status of that smalltime debtor he maltreated.
The rich lady who made fun of her neighbor’s laundry descended to the level of a rumormonger when she wasted time mocking a neighbor for unfounded reasons. Paradigm defines us; our own paradigm condemns us! – (Atty.) Rev. Fr. Dan Domingo P. delos Angeles, Jr., D.M. Email: dan.delosangeles@gmail.com.
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