🙏 Questions for reflection

• Do I expect things of others that I myself would not be willing to give?
• Have I prolonged or exacerbated conflicts or disagreements unnecessarily by refusing to be the first to lose face?
• Am I willing to accept that God's mercy extends also to those people that I find most disgusting – and that, given the chance, I must show them mercy too?

📚 Further reading

• Jonah. This short book of the Bible offers a vignette from the life of a prophet which shows precisely the kind of ambivalence we are inclined to feel about God's mercy; and how blind we can be to God's mercy upon ouselves.
• Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory. A novel about a ‘whiskey priest' in Mexico during a time of persecution, who for all his moral failings nevertheless continues to provide a sacramental lifeline to Christians. The priest himself is a quite unexpected channel of God's mercy, and despite a crushing sense of unworthiness is brought a kind of redemption by his service.
• Dietrich von Hildebrand, Transformation in Christ. A large tome which repays slow reading. Working through each of the Beatitudes, von Hildebrand describes the kind of attitude that must characterise the Christian.
• Oscar Wilde, The Selfish Giant. A short story about a grumpy old giant who is shown a quite unmerited kindness by a mysterious young boy.

🗎 The text of this meditation is available here.

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🎨 Image: The Crucifixion (Murillo)