FRIENDS and SERVANTS of the WORD
MARCH 14, 2023
THIRD TUESDAY OF LENT
WORD of the DAY
Peter approached Jesus and asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times…His master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant, as I had pity on you? (Matthew 18: 21/32-33)
“How shall I live this Word? 
Forgiveness is born only from love, which is a free gift, a gift in excess. Only the love received by God, only the strength of His Love gives us the strength to be able to forgive, because our little heart, sometimes closed in on ourselves, knows how to overcome the temptation of closure, of resentment, of revenge only if opens to His Love. Jesus says to love one another with the same love with which He loved us (Jn 13:34), but this love is a gift to be welcomed; it is not the fruit of our will. Only starting from this accepted gift, then, do I experience my relationship with the other, my openness, my attempt to ‘imitate’ the relationship that God has with me. What the Lord has done with me is the principle of what I do with who is close to me; I welcome the gift and offer it!
Lord, open my heart to the gift of Your Spirit, to the gift of Your love!
The Voice of Pope Francis – General Audience 24 April 2019
Not everything can be resolved with justice in life. No. Above all where a barrier to evil must be put up, someone must love beyond what is due, in order to restart a story of grace. Evil knows its revenge, and if it is not stopped, it risks spreading, suffocating the whole world.
E-mail: srmterzo@gmail.com Website: www.sanbiagio.org info@sanbiagio.org Blog: livingscripture.wordpress.com Comment by Sr. Monica Gianoli, FMA
