Catholic Mass Readings and Reflection February 23, 2025
7th Sunday in Ordinary Time
23rd February 2025 (Sunday)
Psalter: Week 3
Reading of the Day
First Reading: 1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23
In those days, Saul went down to the desert of Ziph with three thousand picked men of Israel, to search for David in the desert of Ziph. So David and Abishai went among Saul’s soldiers by night and found Saul lying asleep within the barricade, with his spear thrust into the ground at his head and Abner and his men sleeping around him. Abishai whispered to David: “God has delivered your enemy into your grasp this day. Let me nail him to the ground with one thrust of the spear; I will not need a second thrust!” But David said to Abishai, “Do not harm him, for who can lay hands on the LORD’s anointed and remain unpunished?” So David took the spear and the water jug from their place at Saul’s head, and they got away without anyone’s seeing or knowing or awakening. All remained asleep, because the LORD had put them into a deep slumber. Going across to an opposite slope, David stood on a remote hilltop at a great distance from Abner, son of Ner, and the troops. He said: “Here is the king’s spear. Let an attendant come over to get it. The LORD will reward each man for his justice and faithfulness. Today, though the LORD delivered you into my grasp, I would not harm the LORD’s anointed.”
Psalm 103:1-2, 3-4, 8, 10, 12-13 (R. 8a)
R/. The Lord is kind and merciful.
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:45-49
Brothers and sisters: It is written, The first man, Adam, became a living being, the last Adam a life-giving spirit. But the spiritual was not first; rather the natural and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, earthly; the second man, from heaven. As was the earthly one, so also are the earthly, and as is the heavenly one, so also are the heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthly one, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly one.
Gospel Acclamation
V/. Alleluia
R/. Alleluia
V/. I give you a new commandment, says the Lord: love one another as I have loved you.
R/. Alleluia.
Gospel : Luke 6:27-38
Jesus said to his disciples: “To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, and get back the same amount. But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. “Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give, and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”
Daily Gospel Reflection
7th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Opener: The world of today is desperately missing mercy. It is languishing in overdose of mercilessness and grudge and retaliation. Only mercy out of love is the healing remedy!
“Be merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful!” Our society is in dire need of mercy. Jesus is placing before us God the Father Himself as our model par excellence for mercy and compassion. There is always a great craze for great models to imitate. But often the problem is the danger of wrong models. Consequently, there is every possibility for deviation and distortion.
All the more, this is a clarion call for fostering a culture of mercy and compassion. And this is very exigent and urgent for our times. We live in a culture where resentment and animosity, revenge and retaliation, aggression and violence have become so rampant and the norm of the day. How sad it is that often “Mercy is abandoned and devalued mercilessly”!
Insensitivity and indifference, egoism, and unconcern dominate everyday life, to the extent, sympathy and feeling for the other have become vanishing points. In fact, many think that sensitivity is tantamount to vulnerability; for many to have concern means to be gullible to be easily manipulated. Kindness is taken as weakness. Forgiveness is regarded as a lack of manliness. Reconciliation is mistaken as timidity.
Many a time people refrain from compassion because they think that it disturbs their security and peace as well. It is because Compassion for sure demands going out of one’s way for the good of the other. Compassion always demands a certain extent of giving, giving up, and sacrificing. And every giving is painful unless motivated by a higher motive. It is only a higher benevolent drive that embalms and sweetens the bitterness of parting with what is dear and losing.
It is in our precise context of a rapidly increasing culture of violence and animosity, there is a desperate need for a culture of mercy and compassion. Only a culture of mercy and compassion can be a redeeming remedy for a world infected so much. In the first place, we must humbly and profoundly realize how ignominiously we are infected by the virulent diseases of division and discrimination, self-centrism, and self-vested interests.
However, mercy and compassion are not mere fleeting feelings or passing sentiments. Mercy and compassion are a whole way of being, an entire mode of living. We need such a culture, a
way of living that forms and grooms us in an unending mission of mercy, and compassion. Thus, it is a whole mode of being. It is being rooted in a God of mercy and compassion; it is being groomed in a consistent atmosphere of love and fidelity; it is being moulded into a character of listening, patience, and empathy; it is being transformed in Christ-likeness in terms of his virtues and values.
It is to be fully imbued with the spirit of love. But, it is not the love in our present times, so shallow and so stooping to gratifying pleasures. Rather it is a love that is so magnanimous like that of David who spared even his enemy Saul even though he had the best chance to kill him.
It is a love that is magnanimous like Jesus’ that loves, blesses, forgives, and saves even the enemies who hate him, curse him and persecute him. Further, it is a love that is equitable and benevolent toward all without discrimination like that of the Father who rains and shines the sun upon all whether just or unjust, good or bad irrespectively.
It is indeed nurturing and fostering a new culture. That is why Jesus questions, “if you love only those who love you and do good only to those who do good to you, then what is your difference and what is your greatness in reference to the non-believers?” It is a new culture, different and radical. It is a contrast and challenging culture.
It is a counter-culture, a powerful stroke against indifference and unforgiveness, a noble antidote to the infections of retaliation and self-centredness. Accordingly, a life of mercy and compassion urges us to strip ourselves of our comfort-seeking and ‘play safe’ attitudes.
Such a contrast culture makes an about-turn from our high profile, impersonal, secure, and ‘play big’ ministries. It enables us to commit ourselves convincingly and courageously to those ministries that make us more sensitive and vulnerable to be affected, to be wounded, to be pained by the afflicted, both by sin and suffering.
Direction: A culture of mercy and compassion summons us personally and also our communities to become the “tilling grounds” of belongingness and loyalty, oneness and fraternal bonding, tenderness, and touching concern.
