Advent Day 1/December 7

Mercy Is All-Embracing

Today’s Reading

The desert and the parched land will exult;
the steppe will rejoice and bloom.
They will bloom with abundant flowers,
and rejoice with joyful song….

Streams will burst forth in the desert,
and rivers in the steppe.
The burning sands will become pools,
and the thirsty ground, springs of water….
Those whom the LORD has ransomed will return
and enter Zion singing….

(cf. Isaiah 35.1-10)

Today’s Reflection

    I was walking down the street in Huehuetenango, Guatemala, with Bishop Alvaro Ramazzini.  A man asked him for alms.  The bishops asked his name, gave his own, and then asked where the man had slept last night, what family he had, and how he was managing to live.  By the time he gave him money, he had given him dignity, friendship, and a sense of equal relationship with another human being who saw him as a brother in Christ.  And he had given me a lesson in what it means to have mercy.

   Because the bishop (who insists on being called “Alvaro”) saw the man not as a beggar but as another complete person, he entered into a personal relationship with him that made him aware of the man’s deeper need.  First he gave him what he had not asked for; then he gave him cash.

   This is what Jesus did.  Some men brought on a stretcher a man who was paralyzed.  Jesus said to the man, “Your sins are forgiven.”  Not what the man came for, but what he needed more.  Then Jesus healed him.

   Christian mercy responds to physical, emotional, social and spiritual needs—even those unasked. When we relate to each other as whole-persons-to-whole-persons we help each other be whole.

--Fr. David M. Knight.

Response

• Ponder what Fr. Knight means by treating people as “whole persons”…
• Think of someone who treats you as a whole person…

• Remember someone who is waiting for you to treat them as a whole person…

• Resolve to treat the people you meet today as whole persons…

Advent Prayer
Lord, I have let myself be deceived.  In a thousand ways I have shunned your love.  Yet here I am once more, to renew my covenant with you. I need you. Save me once again, Lord; take me once more into your redeeming embrace.  You are the Lord, Emmanuel--God-with-Us.

Today’s reflection is excerpted from “A Season of Mercy—Daily Reflections, Practices and Prayers” by Fr. David M. Knight.  Copyright by Twenty-Third Publications.  Used with permission.