Mercy Works Miracles
Today’s Reading
I am the LORD, your
God,
who grasp your right hand;
It is I who say to you, “Fear not,
I will help you.”
The afflicted and the needy seek water in vain….
I, the LORD, will answer them….
I will open up rivers on the bare heights,
and fountains in the broad valleys;
I will turn the desert into a marshland,
and the dry ground into springs of water.
who grasp your right hand;
It is I who say to you, “Fear not,
I will help you.”
The afflicted and the needy seek water in vain….
I, the LORD, will answer them….
I will open up rivers on the bare heights,
and fountains in the broad valleys;
I will turn the desert into a marshland,
and the dry ground into springs of water.
(cf. Isaiah 41.13-20)
Today’s Reflection
In Serabu, a village of Sierra Leone, people
bathed, washed their clothes, and drank water all from the same sluggish creek,
enduring without hope the sickness and death that often followed. Gerry learned about it while a patient of the
Southern Eye Institute, a Catholic charitable foundation in Memphis that for
twenty-five yearshas done eye surgeries in Serabu. Gerry formed members of her Presbyterian
church into a 24/7 prayer team, raised $75,000, and dig nine clean water wells
in Serabu; and Southern Eye hired a local nurse to give ongoing sanitation
instruction. Shortly afterward,
water-borne cholera ravaged Sierra Leone.
There was not one case in Serabu.
Another example of the never-ending miracle of mercy.
The afflicted and needy seek water. “I, the Lord…will not forsake them. I will turn…the dry ground into springs of
water.”
Which is a greater work of God: to produce
miraculous wells, or to move human hearts to such mercy that they raise money
and send members to Africa to dig them? Every act of mercy is a miracle because
it is an act of divine love. We can all
work miracles. All we have to do is open
our eyes to those in need, open our hearts in love, and open—yes—our purses or
calendars when God moves us to action.
--Fr. David M. Knight.
Response
• Ponder what Fr. Knight means when he says ”every act of mercy is
a miracle”…
• Think of a time when someone did something miraculous for you through an act of mercy…
• Think of a time when someone did something miraculous for you through an act of mercy…
• Think of a time when you did some miraculous for someone else
through an act of mercy…
• Resolve to find a situation in your life where you can do
something miraculous through an act of mercy…
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.
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.
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