Monday in the 2nd Week of Lent: Daily Meditations

INGRATITUDE 

To meet contempt where loving gratitude is due is not an easy trial to bear. When we have given freely of our love and shared unstintingly our very best with one whom God has sent into our life, oh, then indeed, it is a crushing thing to find our love despised and all our generous devotedness ignored by him whom we have favored with our heart’s best treasures.

Yes, such a trial is hard to meet, and if in that dark hour we would bear ourselves in a truly Christian manner then we must learn of Him who best can teach for having met like bitter trials at every step from Bethlehem to Calvary.

The Gentle Master came, urged by love alone; came that He might make Himself the Victim of atonement for the sins of His rebellious creatures. His life at every turning saw an overflowing of His Sacred Heart in deeds of loving kindness. The sick of body and the sick of soul were ever the objects of His merciful attention. Beneath His gentle touch blind eyes were opened to the light and withered limbs felt once again the pulse of life. A whispered word brought peace to broken hearts or saving hope to breasts long since abandoned to despair.

Yes, doing good to all, at painful cost, the Gentle Master went His blessed way. And at the end how did the world, so richly blessed, repay His loving kindness? How? Oh, shameful thought! It hung Him on a Cross and stood beneath and jeered and scoffed, as, through three tortured hours, His life was drained away in bitter agony. Thus was the Gentle Master requited for His boundless generosity. And I, should I complain if, by ungrateful treatment, I am made a little like Him?

Jesus, Gentle Master, have mercy on us.

EPISTLE AND GOSPEL:  Taken from the Angelus Press 1962 Roman Catholic Daily Missal

EPISTLE: Dan. 9:15-19

The wrath of God, the almighty Lord of heaven and earth, which fell the first time on Jerusalem at the time of the captivity in Babylon, was renewed against Israel at the burning of the Temple. Like guilty Christians, they would only be able to return to the Lord by penance, while the heathen are called instead to believe in Jesus, to become part of His people by baptism.

In those days Daniel prayed to the Lord, saying: O Lord our God, Who hast brought forth Thy people out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand, and hast made Thee a name as at this day: we have sinned, we have committed iniquity, O Lord, against all Thy justice: let Thy wrath and Thine indignation be turned away, I beseech Thee, from Thy city Jerusalem and from Thy holy mountain.
For by reason of our sins and the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and Thy people are a reproach to all that are round about us.
Now therefore, O our God, hear the supplication of Thy servant and his prayers: and show Thy face upon Thy sanctuary which is desolate, for Thine own sake.
Incline, O my God, Thine ear and hear: open Thine eyes and see our desolation, and the city upon which Thy name is called: for it is not for our justifications that we present our prayers before Thy face, but for the multitude of Thy tender mercies. O Lord, hear: O Lord, be appeased: hearken and do: delay not for Thine own sake, O my God: because Thy name is invoked upon Thy city and upon Thy people, O Lord our God.

GOSPEL: Jn. 8:31-39

Our Lord Jesus Christ foretells that the Jews will lift Him up on the cross, and thrice He says that they will die in their sin, because they have not believed in Him and have neglected to do His works.

At that time Jesus said to the multitudes of the Jews: I go and you shall seek Me, and you shall die in your sin. Whither I go, you cannot come.
The Jews therefore said: Will He kill Himself, because He said: Whither I go, you cannot come?
And He said to them: You are from beneath, I am from above. You are of this world, I am not of this world. Therefore I said to you that you shall die in your sins: for if you believe not that I am He, you shall die in your sin.
They said therefore to Him: Who art Thou?
Jesus said to them: The beginning, Who also speak unto you. Many things I have to speak and to judge of you. But He that sent Me is true: and the things I have heard of Him, these same I speak in the world.
And they understood not that He called God His Father.
Jesus therefore said to them: When you shall have lifted up the Son of man, then shall you know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as the Father hath taught Me, these things I speak: and He that sent Me is with Me, and He hath not left Me alone: for I do always the things that please Him.