Most merciful

A theme which emerges out of the texts of the Roman CatholicLectionary today is mercy. The petition to God for mercy comes when we face our limits and we are aware of the promise of a full life from God in which we have not been full participants. The desire we have to be returned to life initiates our call for mercy which we hope will result in our restoration. The prayer for intervention in the passage from the Book of Daniel is recognition of God as faithful to the Covenant and the presentation of a people who have by their own actions been reduced so they no longer have the life which might be examples of the graciousness of God. In the Gospel from Matthew, Peter begins his conversation about forgiveness with the suggestion to Jesus that he need forgive his brother seven times. Friar Jude Winkler points out that in Hebrew numerology “7” is the perfect number and in this context Peter is expressing that he gets it. He needs to forgive a perfect or “infinite” number of times. Jesus makes the point that even the most generous forgiveness imagined by humanity is trumped an infinite number of infinities of forgiveness by God. Friar Jude warns of the temptation to quantify sin and forgiveness as we often do in comparing our sins, which we might classify as insignificant, to the great transgressions of others. The mystics and Fathers of the Church understood that our sin is to be considered in relation to the graciousness we have known from God.  From those to whom much is given, much is expected. Our petition to God for mercy is rooted in our experience of the loss of intimacy which has resulted from our choices in life. We give thanks for the infinite Love which triumphs.