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Join us as we reflect, ponder, and pray together inspired by today's Gospel.

Today's Gospel: Matthew 5:38-42

 

Today is our anniversary, and what a passage to read. Jesus is right. Especially in marriage, there is no place for the “eye for an eye” philosophy. We don’t have enough body parts for that.

It sounds sad, that we could marry in love and promise fidelity and then wound each other, a thousand tiny wounds. A few not so tiny.

And yet, that is exactly the beauty of love and fidelity. What fidelity is there in loving an always-pleasant thing? We all enjoy what pleases us. Love is what takes over in the spaces in between.

And so Jesus wisely asks us not to demand justice, but to be mercy for one another. We are mercy for each other not because we deserve it, but because we don’t. We give and give and give not because we are doormats, but because we are madly in love with person who has taught us that the only way to real freedom is surrender.

We must not allow our sufferings to close us in on ourselves. Rather, when it seems that much has been demanded of us, we can rejoice. Who suffered more injustice than the One who gave His life for ours? Who had more taken away from her than His mother?

Through their example, we see that to face anger and malice or even mere pettiness with kindness and gentleness is not weakness. It is the very way that Jesus and His mother meet with suffering and injustice.

We can never be taken advantage of when we are truly generous. We love when we patiently bear wrongs, when we give like the father of the prodigal son. How our love might be wasted or undeserved is not cause to withhold it. That only keeps us from living in the image of the Father.

Let us, like the woman who anointed Jesus’s feet, lavish love wastefully on one another. After all, it cannot be stored up, only given away.

 

Ponder:


Jesus, where can I be wasteful with my love today?

 

Pray:


Lord, help me to give from a place of abundance and generosity. Untie any knots in my heart that keep me closed off from love.


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We must not allow our sufferings to close us in on ourselves. Rather, when it seems that much has been demanded of us, we can rejoice. #dailygospel



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Copyright 2021 Samantha Stephenson