Pope's Intentions
Universal: Scientists
That those involved in scientific research may serve the well-being of the whole human person.
Evangelization: Contribution of women
That the unique contribution of women to the life of the Church may be recognized always.
Monday of the Second week of Lent
Commentary of the day
Saint Bernard (1091-1153), Cistercian monk and doctor of the Church
The Degrees of Humility and Pride, §12 (trans. ©Classics of Western Spirituality, 1987)
"Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful"
You see, then, that Christ has two natures in one Person, one which always was and another which began to be. And according to that nature which was eternally his, he always knew everything. But according to that which began in time, he experienced many things in time. In this way he began to know the miseries of the flesh, by that mode of cognition which the weakness of the flesh instructs.
Our first parents were wiser and happier when they did not know that which they came to know only foolishly and in wretchedness. But God their Creator, seeking what was lost, came down in mercy in pursuit of his wretched creatures, to where they had miserably fallen. He wanted to experience for himself what they were suffering because they had gone against his will. He came not out of a curiosity like theirs, but out of a wonderful charity. He did not intend to remain wretched among them, but to free those who were wretched as one made merciful.
Therefore Christ was made merciful, not with that mercy which he who remained happy had had from eternity, but with that mercy which he discovered in our fleshly garb as he himself went through our misery.