During Lent and Advent we make special sacrifices to help cleanse us, renew us, and prepare us for the renewal of our baptismal promises on Easter. Many, according to Mary's directives at Medjugorje, fast on Wednesdays and Fridays, for the purpose of atoning for our sins and those of the whole world, and whet the hunger and thirst within for a closer union with our God. Yet these practices can become rigid and prevent us from realizing how much we depend on God's mercy.
when the Pharisees criticized the disciples of Jesus for plucking grain to eat on the Sabbath, to abate their hunger, Jesus reminded them that the letter of the law can be, must be, overridden by mercy. He gave them the example of David who asked for the holy showbread from the temple, bread that only the priests could eat, to feed his men who needed food. He also reminds them that to serve the people, priests break the law of the sabbath, working and taking too many steps, yet they are regarded as innocent. If they, and we knew and kept the tenet, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice", we would be freer to live the law of charity and experience grace and God's mercy as well as being channels of that mercy to others. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI tells us that accepting God's mercy is the most perfect form of mercy: "Christian sacrifice consists in our becoming totally receptive and letting ourselves be completely taken over by God--letting him act in us." That is, totally open to his mercy. Let take time before the crucifix and remember God's many gifts of mercy to us, and repeat often during the day, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice."
Bro. Rene
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