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Share your faith – Join our Online Discussion! Build up others with your thoughts on our Sunday meditation. Three questions will be offered for reflection and discussion each week. Please pray through the questions and share your insights or what the Lord spoke to you in the comments area provided. Your words will inspire others in The Word Among Us community and encourage us all.
Consider an elderly gentleman facing surgery, terrified of what might happen if he doesn’t survive the procedure. He has practiced his faith his whole life, and yet he still can’t believe that Jesus would welcome him home. Wouldn’t you want to encourage this man with the good news of God’s mercy? What about those who have distanced themselves from God and indulged in sin and rebellion? Could there be mercy for them? Should they dare to trust after living such a self-destructive life? Absolutely!
Today we celebrate Jesus’ loving kindness. On this day, one week after Easter, we are reminded why Jesus rose from the dead: to shower the world with divine mercy. Now, unless we reject him outright, he will never deny us.
As Peter walked through the streets of Jerusalem, many people brought their sick friends and relatives to him “in order that Peter’s shadow might fall on one or another of them… . And they were all cured” (Acts 5:15,16). It was such a simple act, taking a friend to the side of the road, but it resulted in amazing miracles. Jesus didn’t wait for them to drum up heroic faith. All they needed was to take one small step, and he came running to them.
This is the message that God gave St. Faustina. “The graces of mercy,” Jesus once told her, “are drawn by means of one vessel only, and that is trust. The more a soul trusts, the more it will receive.” Or to put it another way: Everyone who trusts—receives!
God has so much in store for us! If we simply go to meet him in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we will find the divine mercy that we so deeply need. Jesus isn’t waiting for us to drum up heroic courage. All he needs is for us to take one step toward him, and he will rush in with his forgiveness, his healing, and his strength.
“Jesus, your love is beyond words. For the sake of your sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.”
Discussion Questions
1. Share a time when you felt surrounded by God’s loving kindness and care for you. What effect did this have on you?
2. What obstacles might hinder your trust that God looks at you with mercy, love, and compassion? Perhaps fear? Or shame? How can you take a step or two away from these obstacles so that you can become more open to receiving his mercy?
3. Recall an instance when you were able to show mercy and God’s healing love to someone. How did that person respond? How does your life “witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 4:33) to your family, neighbors, or coworkers?
pride is an obstacle that interferes with the ability to trust God’s mercy and compassion; sometimes we feel that we have to qualify for His mercy, or,conversely, we despair of qualifying; but these thoughts and emotions are rooted in pride; we would be so much more at peace if we just admit, once and for all, that we can never earn God’s mercy; the focus is not even on us; God’s mercy and love are infinite and endless; all we have to do to be saved is accept them ( by repenting of our sins and living his love law to the best of our ability); God’s mercy in rooted in his Nature, in his plan for the world, and to glorify His name; so let’s get on board with His plan, our own misconceptions and pride are the only obstacles to a fresh start in life
I agree 100% with the last comment--pride is a huge obstacle for most people, and often they (like me) may not even realize it is pride, because pride may be masking itself as insecurity or fear. We may be afraid to trust God’s mercy, afraid to step out in faith and abandon ourselves to God’s mercy, because we’re afraid that God may ask of us something we’re afraid to give, or that we will try to accomplish something and fail.
But Jesus told St. Faustina that He does not expect us to always succeed; it is enough that we are trying. Sometimes in the lifetimes of many great Saints it has seemed to the world that they were magnificent failures at nearly all they attempted, and only after their deaths did we, as a Church, realize the value of what they were trying to do. So be not prideful and step out in faith and trust, like a child running to a loving parent!
Yes agree with the above. There is too the reality of intellelctual pride which ,regrettably, is sweeping our culture and almost defines Western Europe. That pride of mind known as postmodernism which denies any reality other than the finite, while denying truth and morality except as relative and cuturally/biologically emergent human realities; denying God, a saving Christ, etc...a veritable fallen deck of cards is this type of pride’s legacy. It is ruinous.