 |
| Photo created by James Dacey, Jr. using Co-Pilot. |
Monday of the Second
Week of Lent • Lent 2026 • Year A • Beads of Joy Blog II
✝️ Today's Mass Readings
First Reading: Daniel 9:4b-10
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 79:8, 9, 11, 13
Gospel: Luke 6:36-38
📖 The Gospel - Luke 6:36-38
Jesus gives us one of
the most breathtaking and challenging commands in all the Gospels: Be merciful,
just as your Father is merciful. And then He unpacks what that looks like in
daily life: stop judging, stop condemning, forgive, and watch what God pours
back into your life.
🙏 Gospel Reflection
There is a beautiful
symmetry in today's readings that I don't want you to miss. Daniel opens the
first reading with one of the most honest prayers in all of Scripture. He kneels before God and says, on behalf of his whole people, we have sinned, we
have done wrong, we have not listened. No excuses. No explanations. Just a
clean, humble acknowledgment of failure, and then a complete throwing of
himself on God's mercy. He doesn't say we deserve Your help. He says, You are
merciful. That is our only hope.
And then Jesus turns it around in the Gospel.
He says, now that you know how completely you depend on God's mercy, go and BE
that for someone else. Stop judging. Stop condemning others. Be a Forgiver and
a Giver. The measure you use is the measure you will receive back, pressed
down, shaken together, running over.
Here is what I think about that image,
pressed down, shaken together, running over. That is how a merchant in the
ancient world filled a measure of grain, packing it in tight so the customer
got every last bit. Jesus is saying that when we are generous with mercy, God
is not stingy with His response. He fills the measure, presses it down, shakes
it, and lets it spill over the sides.
I have needed that kind of mercy more times
than I can count. And I have received it, not because I earned it but because I
serve a God whose nature is mercy. Every bead of the Rosary is a small act of
leaning into that mercy and asking Our Lady to help us become a little more
like the Father, merciful, non-judging, free-hearted, and generous with
forgiveness.
💭 Reflection Question
Is there someone in
your life right now you have been measuring with a tight, careful measure,
withholding forgiveness, holding judgment, and what would it look like today to
give them the pressed down, shaken together, running over measure of mercy that
God gives you?
📿 Today's Rosary - The Sorrowful Mysteries
Today's Focus
Mystery: The Agony in the
Garden
In Gethsemane, Jesus
threw Himself completely on the Father's mercy, just as Daniel does in today's
first reading. He had no bargaining chip. He simply trusted the One whose
nature is mercy. As you pray these beads today, bring your own neediness before
God with Daniel's honesty and Jesus' trust.
🌹 Our Lady of Fatima - Today's Connection
Our Lady's Immaculate
Heart is above all else a heart of mercy. She appeared at Fatima not to condemn
the world but to call it, urgently, tenderly, back to God's mercy. Her message
echoes Luke 6 today: stop, turn, forgive, return. When she wept at Fatima, she
was not weeping in anger. She was weeping with the mercy of a mother who sees
her children heading in the wrong direction and cannot bear it. Let her
merciful heart soften yours today toward anyone you have been judging or
withholding from.
🕊️ Closing Prayer
Lord, You fill my
measure pressed down and running over with Your mercy every single day. Help me
to be as generous with others as You are with me. Where I have been judging,
let me release. Where I have been withholding, let me give. Make me merciful,
just as You are merciful. Amen.
©2026 James Dacey, Jr., OFS
________________________________________________
Want to know more
about My Spiritual Journey?
Read My Story: An Invitation
To Read My Story - My Testimony
