FRIDAY I LENT: hatred is overcome by love

Posted on March 3, 2023 by franksantucci

Go first and be reconciled with your brother. (Mt. 5:24)

This time I admit that we must even redouble our gratitude for the marvels of this beautiful mission of Zicavo: we have to shed tears of joy.

From here. I see you surrounded by all these bloodthirsty men who become like lambs at your call, the daggers falling from their hands: they forgive and embrace each other. Oh how beautiful this is! And this moving response: now that their arms, loaded as they were to kill their enemies, now that these latter no longer existed, it was only right that they be shot off in your honour. Yes, that is superb!

Letter of Eugene de Mazenod to Fr. Etienne Semeria in Corsica, 16 October 1841, EO IX n 741

REFLECTION

 Lord, though the human race is divided by dissension and discord, yet we know that by testing us you change our hearts to prepare them for reconciliation.
Even more, by your Spirit you move human hearts that enemies may speak to each other again, adversaries join hands, and peoples seek to meet together.
By the working of your power it comes about, O Lord, that hatred is overcome by love, revenge gives way to forgiveness, and discord is changed to mutual respect.

(Preface for Reconciliation II)

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One Response to FRIDAY I LENT: hatred is overcome by love

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Lay Oblate says:
    March 3, 2023 at 12:11

    This morning it is the Preface for Reconciliation that captures my heart, letting in light and hope. I think of the motto of the 37th General Chapter: Pilgrims of Hope in Communion – of us walking together no matter our differences, our woundedness, our gifts and our graces. Reconciliation – letting go of that which is so easy to hang on to… We are invited to open the windows and doors of our hearts so that new light and life can enter in. Only than will we be able to step outside of our safety zone and walk with others.

    It is not the letter-of-the-law and its old ways that allows new light and life to enter in. I think of the new covenant that Jesus entered into with each of us, reminding us that we had to become more righteous than the scribes and the pharisees – a new law and a new way of being. I think of what we are now calling the Synodal way of being, of us listening and sharing so that we might walk together – in a way of reconciliation, of love and forgiveness and mutual respect.

    Today is my birthday, a new day, a new year… Give me the grace O Lord, to let go of that which I am hanging onto only because it seems safe, because I know it. Give me the grace and new life to be overcome by love, to be drenched in forgiveness and to look upon my brothers and sister with loving respect…

    Reply

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