Daily Mass Gospel Reflection- Desiring Mercy, Poured Upon Us

Word on Fire Ministry ^ | 7.21.23 | Bishop Robert Barron

[MurphsLaw]

Friends, in today’s Gospel,
Jesus corrects the Pharisees with this theme of his ministry:
“I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”

Every saint had a past,
and every sinner has a future.
That is key to Catholic spirituality.
In the lives of every one of these heroes of the faith,
there is some conversion. And every sinner—
every one of us—has a future.
That is why we soak in the mercy of God.

There is a beautiful reference in the Psalms
to oil running down upon your beard, upon the collar of your robe.
The divine mercy is like that:
poured out upon us, poured out without reservation—
and not because it’s earned,
because it can’t be earned.

God doesn’t love us because we’re worthy.
We’re worthy because he loves us.
We don’t deserve his mercy,
but we soak it in and thereby are transformed.

[MurphsLaw]

+++Jesus was going through
a field of grain on the sabbath.
His disciples were hungry
and began to pick the heads of
grain and eat them.
When the Pharisees saw this,
they said to him,
"See, your disciples are doing
what is unlawful to do on the sabbath."
He said to them,
"Have you not read what David did
when he and his companions were hungry,
how he went into the house of
God and ate the bread of offering,
which neither he nor his companions
but only the priests could lawfully eat?
Or have you not read in the law
that on the sabbath
the priests serving in the
temple violate the sabbath
and are innocent?
I say to you, something greater
than the temple is here.
If you knew what this meant,

I desire mercy, not sacrifice,

you would not have condemned
these innocent men.
For the Son of Man is
Lord of the sabbath."+++