Patrick Comerford
Lent began almost two weeks ago on Ash Wednesday (5 March 2025), and yesterday was the Second Sunday in Lent (Lent II). But today is Saint Patrick’s Day (17 March 2025), and it offers Irish people a respite in the rigours and disciplines of Lent.
I hope to say a little more about Saint Patrick and Saint Patrick’s Day later today. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, reading today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Luke 6: 36-38 (NRSVA):
[Jesus said:] 36 ‘Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
37 ‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; 38 give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.’
Today’s Reflection:
The Gospel reading in the lectionary for Saint Patrick’s Day is Matthew 10: 16-23, and I hope to say a little more about Saint Patrick and Saint Patrick’s Day in a blog posting later today. But the Lenten reading for the Eucharist today is Luke 6: 36-38, which is from the ‘Sermon on the Level Place’, Saint Luke’s equivalent of the Sermon on the Mount.
After the blessings and woes of the Beatitudes, Jesus tells us as his followers to be merciful as God is merciful. Mercy is one of God’s primary qualities (see Exodus 34: 6-7), and the concept of mercy in Luke 6 has an eschatological frame of reference. God is merciful by offering the possibility of turning away from disobedience through repentance and turning towards him and receiving forgiveness and restoration.
In Mary’s song Magnificat, God is twice identified as merciful (Luke 1: 50, 54). Zechariah too identifies mercy as a sign of God’s faithfulness to God’s promises, creating a people who ‘might serve God without fear in holiness and righteousness (Luke 1: 72-78). In this morning’s reading, Christ shows how to put this mercy into practice.
In the verses immediately before today’s reading, Luke 6: 27-29 presupposes a situation of conflict, in a time when the religious and political leaders of day were seen by many as their enemies. But Christ calls on us to respond and act in ways that seek the good of the other. This form of nonviolence goes beyond non-retaliation and takes positive steps that promote the welfare of the other parties in the conflict.
Luke 6: 30 presupposes an economic situation in which many people are exploited, live in poverty, and seek to survive by begging. The give to those who beg implies that we have an abundance from which to share (see Luke 6: 39).
Luke 6: 31 repeats the ‘Golden Rule’: ‘Do to others as you would have them do to you.’ But the golden rule is not enough for us, the Children of God (see verse 35) in our covenant relationship with God.
uke 6: 32-34 challenges the widely accepted notion in the Hellenistic world that relationships are reciprocal, and calls on us to go beyond behaviour is guided merely by the expectation of similar responses.
Luke 6: 35 calls on to replace old-age pattens of behaviour with ways that reflect the Kingdom of God, and to imitate God who is kind also to the ungrateful and the wicked. To be kind does not mean to approve but means to seek the best interest. Even the ungrateful and the wicked have the potential and the possibility of becoming part of the Kingdom of God.
Now, Luke 6: 36 sums up how to live a life that reflects the Kingdom of God.
Luke 6: 37 is a reminder that we not have the final say ourselves on who is in and who is outside the Kingdom of God. We do not live in the apocalyptic moment, and when he exclude others from the Church we risk finding we have excluded ourselves too.
Luke 6: 38 reminds us that God’s generosity is overflowing and overwhelming and goes beyond any possibility we have of measuring it.
As Shakespeare reminds us, in the words of Portia in The Merchant of Venice,
The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven … (The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene 1).
Today’s Prayers (Monday 17 March 2025, Saint Patrick’s Day):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Truth: The Path to Reconciliation’. This theme was introduced yesterday with a programme update by Rachel Weller, Communications Officer, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Monday 17 March 2025, Saint Patrick’s Day) invites us to pray:
Dear God, grant us the courage to seek and speak the truth in all aspects of our lives. May we find the strength to acknowledge our own roles in the injustices we witness and strive to be agents of reconciliation.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
who in your providence chose your servant Patrick
to be the apostle of the Irish people:
keep alive in us the fire of the faith he kindled
and strengthen us in our pilgrimage
towards the light of everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post Communion Prayer:
Holy Father,
who gathered us here around the table of your Son
to share this meal with the whole household of God:
in that new world where you reveal
the fullness of your peace,
gather people of every race and language
to share with Patrick and all your saints
in the eternal banquet of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
No comments:
Post a Comment