7th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our readings for the 7th Sunday of Ordinary Time are:

1. Leviticus 19: 1-2, 17-18
2. Psalms 103: 1-2, 3-4, 8, 10, 12-13
3. 1 Corinthians 3: 16-23
4. Matthew 5: 38-48

• Bear no grudge?
• In some ways, frustration is perhaps the toughest emotion to deal with.  It is a measure of the distance between what we would dearly love to do, and what we are capable of because of our better nature, civil laws, or other limitations.
• The last time that someone did a wrong to you, how did that impact you?
• How is your relationship to that other person today?
• If you are separated from that other person, do you miss them, or do you just miss the relationship that you had with them before they wronged you?
• If you could go back to the way things were with them, would you?
• Why?

• Is mercy for losers?
• Have you ever done or said anything, or missed an opportunity to be a generous person?  Do you have a sense of the depth of God's mercy towards you?
• A merciless God could just start over.  After all, He has all of eternity.  Maybe the next batch of sentient creations will treat Him better.  Why do you think He puts up with us?
• What can we learn from such boundless mercy?
• What sort of world would we live in if just one person in it had boundless mercy?
• Could that person be you?

• Humility is the beginning of wisdom
• True wisdom is more than mere knowledge, it is the ability to make sense of the realities of our time, and frame a response to them that helps all of us become more holy.
• How do you stay in touch with the world around you?  Daily newspaper, listing to the BBC, listening to podcasts?
• How do you bring all of that the prayer?
• Why are you convinced that God is interested in all of that?
• What do you think He wants us to do about all of the disturbing things going on around us?

• What's in it for me?
• I have this fantasy that one day I'll come across one of my students with a cardboard sign reading "will work for makeup points on my last CECS 323 exam".  They seem willing to do anything as long as the bottom line is that it will improve their grade.
• What practical use can it be for us to make ourselves vulnerable to others?
• Is there any limit?  When do we have God's permission to defend ourselves?
• The Church deeply reveres martyrs.  Why do you think that is?
• What does it take to avoid just having a martyr complex?
• Is martyrdom an event, or a process?

• Preparation for Reconciliation:

1. What anger am I holding onto that I need to let go of?
2. Where can I show God's mercy to someone else?
3. Where is God leading me to greater wisdom?
4. Where is God trying to give me a more realistic view of His world?

Shalom!