Daily Mass Gospel Reflection - Compounding Grace

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 01.26.23 | Bishop Robert Barron

[MurphsLaw]

Memorial of Saints Timothy and Titus, Bishops
Mark 4:21-25

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus says the measure that you use will be measured out to you.
He is speaking about the loop of grace.

God’s love can truly dwell in us only in the measure that we give it away.
If we try to cling to it, it will never work its way into our own hearts.
But if we give it away as an act of love,
then we get more of it,
entering into a delightful stream of grace.
If you give away the divine love, then you keep it.

Love is described in the Christian tradition as a theological virtue,
a habit or capacity that comes as a gift from God.
This is true because love is a participation in the divine life.
God is uniquely capable of love in the complete sense,
since he alone can fully will the good of the other as other.

What makes real love possible among humans
is only a sharing in the love with which God loves,
some participation in the divine to-be.
When we root ourselves in the God who has no need,
who exists in radical self-sufficiency,
we can begin to love the other as he does.

[MurphsLaw]

+++Jesus said to his disciples,
“Is a lamp brought in to be placed under a bushel basket
or under a bed,
and not to be placed on a lampstand?
For there is nothing hidden except to be made visible;
nothing is secret except to come to light.
Anyone who has ears to hear ought to hear.”
He also told them, “Take care what you hear.
The measure with which you measure will be measured out to you,
and still more will be given to you.
To the one who has, more will be given;
from the one who has not,
even what he has will be taken away.”+++