'Tis the Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent (meaning "Spring;" the Latin name is Quadragesima, meaning "fortieth"): Quadragesima-link & Wikipedia-link Quadragesima.
Saints of the Day
'Tis the Optional Memorial of Saint Frances of Rome, Religious, Obl.S.B. (1384-1440).
Scripture of the Day
Mass Readings—Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent
The Book of Daniel, chapter three, verses twenty-five & thirty-four thru forty-three;
Psalm Twenty-five (R/. six[a]), verses four & five(a/b), six & seven(b/c), & eight & nine;
The Gospel according to Matthew, chapter eighteen, verses twenty-one thru thirty-five.
Commentary: Gospel reflection by Bishop Robert Barron (Word on Fire):
Friends, today’s Gospel gives us the parable of the unforgiving servant, which reveals what is at the root of our inability to forgive.Video reflection by Deacon Arthur L. Miller (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops): Daily Reflection.
In the deepest sense, we don’t belong to ourselves. Everything we have and all that we are comes from God. We are meant, with all of our gifts, to serve God’s purposes. Our very existence comes from God, but so does the forgiveness of our sins. Through no merit of ours, Christ has died for our sins and offered us the divine mercy. The upshot is this: there is nothing particularly stable about the self, nothing that it can claim for its own. All that it has is received as a gift.
Well, the incapacity to forgive comes from one place: a false sense of the substantial self. If my life belongs to me, then I will cling to resentment, anger, and self-righteousness when my dignity has been compromised. But when we realize that our life is not about us—when we put our forgiveness of others in relation to God’s forgiveness of us—then we find that real forgiveness is possible.
Reflect: Think of the last time you had difficulty forgiving someone. How did your sense of your own "substantial self" make you hesitant to forgive?
Video reflection by Rob Corzine (St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology): Daily Reflection.
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