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Tuesday of the Fourth
Week of Lent • Year A • Beads of Joy Blog II
✝️ Today's Mass Readings
First Reading: Daniel 3:25, 34-43
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9
Gospel: Matthew 18:21-35
📖 The Gospel - Matthew 18:21-35
Peter comes to Jesus
with what he clearly thinks is a generous question, Lord, how many times must I
forgive my brother? As many as seven times? And Jesus looks at him and says,
not seven times, but seventy times seven. And then He tells a parable about a
servant forgiven an unpayable debt who immediately goes out and throttles a
fellow servant over a few coins.
🙏 Gospel Reflection
Seventy times seven.
In the ancient Jewish understanding, that number wasn't meant to be calculated;
it meant without limit, without counting, beyond all human reckoning. Jesus is
not giving Peter a new quota to track. He is dismantling the quota system
entirely. Forgiveness in the kingdom of God is not a ledger; you do not track
it. It is a way of life.
The parable is brutal in its honesty. The
servant who was forgiven ten thousand talents, an amount so astronomical it
could never be repaid in a hundred lifetimes, goes straight from the king's
presence and seizes a fellow servant by the throat over a hundred denarii. A
few days' wages. The contrast is almost comic in its absurdity. And yet. Jesus
is holding up a mirror.
Because we do this. We receive God's mercy
fresh and overflowing every single morning, forgiveness that covers things we
don't even fully remember, debt we could never begin to repay, and then we walk
out the door and nurse a grudge about something someone said three years ago.
We hold our fellow servant by the throat and demand what is owed. And the
king's question echoes through every Lent we have ever lived. Should you not
have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?
Azariah's prayer in the fiery furnace from
Daniel today is the right posture; we have no sacrifices worthy to offer, no
ground to stand on except Your mercy. That is the truth of our condition before
God every single morning. And from that truth, forgiveness of others becomes
not just a duty but the only reasonable response.
💭 Reflection Question
Is there a debt
someone owes you, a wrong, a hurt, an injustice, that you have been holding
onto and calculating carefully? What would it mean today to tear up that ledger
completely and release it into God's hands?
📿 Today's Rosary - The Sorrowful Mysteries
Today's Focus
Mystery: The Carrying of the
Cross
Jesus carried the
cross for the very people who put Him on it, and He never stopped interceding
for them. Every step toward Calvary was an act of seventy times seven in forgiveness
lived out in His body. As you pray these beads today, ask Him to walk with you
toward whatever cross of forgiveness He is calling you to carry.
🌹 Our Lady of Fatima - Today's Connection
At Fatima, Our Lady
asked for prayers specifically for sinners, the very people who had offended
God and perhaps offended us. She wept not in condemnation but in intercession,
standing before God on behalf of those who did not even know they needed mercy.
That is seventy times seven embodied in a mother's heart. As you pray your
Rosary today, pray one decade specifically for someone you have been struggling
to forgive. Let Our Lady's intercessory heart teach yours how forgiveness heals.
🕊️ Closing Prayer
Lord, I have been
forgiven so much. So much more than I have ever fully grasped or deserved. Out
of that ocean of mercy, help me release the small debt I have been holding so
tightly. Not seven times, but seventy times seven. As many times as it takes.
Amen.
©2026 James Dacey, Jr., OFS
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