St. Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) said, “If we have no peace, we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” When we welcome others in Christ’s name, even and especially people who are different from us, we’re fulfilling God’s greatest commandment to love God and love others (Lk 10: 27). When we love others, we are actually treating them as if they were Christ Himself. In the parable of the sheep and the goats…
How fitting that the first week after Easter Sunday is the Sunday of Divine Mercy. First we celebrate Christ’s powerful victory over sin and death, and then we celebrate His powerful mercy. Our call today is to accept and trust in God’s ocean of mercy and then pour it out for others. Divine Mercy means that God helps us when we are in distress: “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, saves those whose spirit…
What a beautiful Savior we have. God the Father didn’t send Jesus to appease His wrath and sentence us to death. Instead, Jesus came to save us: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (Jn 3:17). Jesus holds the power of divine judgment (Jn 5:22-24). Dying for our sins to save us took more love and power than merely…
Imagine what the prodigal son must have looked like when he returned home. He wasn’t wearing his fine clothes or jewelry—he had probably pawned them off. He was dirty from tending the swine and walking for miles with no shoes. He may have even lost weight from lack of food. Even looking so unlike himself, his father recognized him “while he was still a long way off” (Lk 15:20). The son, who had once turned…
We all know the golden rule: “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Lk 6:31). Easier said than done, right? Notice that the rule is not, “Do to others as they deserve.” Thank goodness, because we don’t always deserve to receive mercy. We fail each other. We can be hurtful to others. We sin against God and each other. Even so, we’re called to “be merciful, just as your Heavenly Father…