05/03/2024

Today's first reading is not historically accurate. In fact it was written many centuries after the event it depicts. The Gospel reading similarly took on the form it has for us today more than 300 years after the events which completed God's revelation to his people on Earth.

Why then am I reading and pondering on myself alive in the world today in the light of these deeds recorded as words, that can be disputed by scholars, from long ago? I do believe in God. I do believe that he knows me. I do believe that everything in this world passes away into nothingness except for the reciprocal Love between God and his people.

Daniel tells us that God has always had a special love for the descendants of Noah. He does not tell us that he cares nothing about other humans who are often portrayed in the Old Testament as sinners whose idolatry should be driven from the face of the Earth. The chosen people similarly fall into the quick fix for their longing for God by sacrifice to a Golden Calf rather than the long but sure way to righteousness that God reveals to them through his prophets.

St Peter asks Jesus about how we can live righteously in a world filled as it is with other human beings whom we cannot know with the intimacy that we know ourselves and try to know Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The first link of the golden chain that binds us all in the mystical Body of Christ is forgiveness. Our God knows everything and forgives everything. God does not want to punish anyone. My childish sins are forgiven as is the Godless inhumanity of today in Gaza and the graver sins of my adulthood.

My God calls out to me from his Old Testament and from his Incarnate words and life in the New. Sometimes the weight of the guilt of our personal sins seems to overwhelm us but Jesus tells us by his words, death and resurrection that  "forgiveness" is real and begins with us who are forgiven in ourselves in as much as we forgive others. God has created us as free beings who are responsible for the way we live out our time on Earth. Thanks be to God.

Dear Lord, help me to retain the sense of being known to you throughout this today and let my anger be controlled so that I can forgive but not forget that we can all implore your mercy not only for ourselves but for all, friend and foe alike. May Mary who only knows sin as the pains of the  passion that Jesus accepted to generate forgiveness for all mankind continue to lead the Angels and Saints in their praise of you and in pleas of Mercy for sinners on Earth and in Purgatory. God forgive us our trespasses and let our forgiveness of others become as complete as your own. Amen