Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Hai tuần thứ Hai Mùa Chay

 Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Hai tuần thứ Hai Mùa Chay
“Đong đấu nào, thì sẽ được trả bằng đấu ấy..”
Đấy chính là cách mà Chúa Giêsu sẽ dành cho chúng ta, với tình yêu vô điều kiện mà Ngài chấp nhận sự chối bỏ và sự phản bội của con người, và chấp nhận cả sự đau khổ và cái chết của Ngài để Ngài có thể sống lại, chiến thắng tất cả mọi tội lỗi và sự chết, và đem lại cho tất cả chúng ta sự cứu rỗi. Ngài đã từ chối chống lại bất cứ điều gì mà kẻ thù của Ngài đã đối xử với Ngài, nhưng Ngài luôn sẵn sàng tha thứ cho họ ngay lúc Ngài còn trên cây thập giá.
            Chúa Giêsu muốn chúng ta phải biết ăn năn thống hối những lẫm lỗi mà chúng ta đã xúc phạm đến người khác. Chỉ có ân sủng của Thiên Chúa mới có thể giúp chúng ta hòa giải với kẻ thù hoặc những người đã làm tổn thương chúng ta hay những người đã không đối xử công bằng với chúng ta. Chúng ta có thể tha thứ hết, nhưng không phải lúc nào cũng có thể hoàn toàn quên hết được những sự tổn thương đã gây hại đến chúng ta, nhưng quá trình hoà giải, nếu chúng ta chỉ biết hàng động trong ơn sũng và sự phó thác hoàn toàn trong tình yêu của Chúa Kitô, chúng ta có thể tìm được an bình trong sự tha thứ hoàn toàn. Đó là những gì mà Chúa Kitô đã làm cho chúng ta, đó là  tình yêu hy sinh trên thập tự giá của Ngài đã dành cho chúng ta. Ngài muốn thấy chúng ta an vui hoàn toàn trong tâm hồn, và có được sự tự do để cho mọi người thấy được lòng thương xót mà Chúa đã dành cho chúng ta. "Chúng ta đong đấu nào thì cũng sẽ được trả lại bằng đấu ấy…." (Luca 6:38)
Lạy Chúa Giêsu, tình yêu của Chúa đã  mang lại sự tự do, tha thứ, và niềm vui cho chúng con. Xin Chúa biến đổi trái tim của chúng con với tình yêu của Chúa để không có gì có thể làm cho chúng con phải mất bình tĩnh, nóng giận, để làm mất đi hòa khí của chúng con, hay lấy đi mất niềm vui của chúng con và làm chúng con phải cay đắng, giận dữ với bất cứ người nào"
 
Reflection MONDAY, 2nd Week of Lent
Some of the hardest things to do are to be merciful and to forgive someone who has hurt us. Our natural reaction is to retaliate or to strike back, preferably with more force, just to see the satisfaction of hurting the other party even more than they hurt us.
     And yet, Jesus tells us to be merciful just like the Father; not to judge or condemn; to forgive. By doing so, He promises that we will receive the same treatment that we give others, in full measure and running over. This is exactly how Jesus, innocent and sinless, out of unconditional love for us, embraced his rejection, his Passion and death so that He may rise again, conquering sin and death, and bringing all of us the salvation He wants for everyone. He did not hold anything against his enemies but forgave them from the cross.
     To show mercy and to forgive are some of the most difficult things to do. We can't do it alone and it takes time. Jesus wants us to repent for any resentment or hatred we may have against others. He knows how it feels to suffer from life's hurts and He is always with us in our struggles. It is only with God's grace that we'll be able to reconcile with our enemies or people who have hurt us or treated us unfairly and to move on.
     Forgiveness doesn't always totally erase the memory of the hurt that was done to us but the process of healing can only start with this conscious act of love and forgiveness. It is what Christ did for us with His loving sacrifice on the cross. He wants to see us whole and at peace, and free enough to show people the same mercy he has shown us. "For the measure you give will be the measure you receive back."
 
Monday of the Second Week of Lent
Jesus said to his disciples: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.”  Luke 6:36–37
Saint Ignatius of Loyola, in his guide for a thirty-day retreat, has the retreatant spend the first week of the retreat focusing upon sin, judgment, death and hell. At first, this can seem very uninspiring. But the wisdom of this approach is that after a week of these meditations, retreatants come to a deep realization of just how much they need the mercy and forgiveness of God. They see their need more clearly, and a deep humility is fostered within their soul as they see their guilt and turn to God for His mercy.
But mercy goes both ways. It is part of the very essence of mercy that it can only be received if it is also given. In the Gospel passage above, Jesus gives us a very clear command about judgment, condemnation, mercy and forgiveness. Essentially, if we want mercy and forgiveness, then we must offer mercy and forgiveness. If we are judgmental and condemning, then we will also be judged and condemned. These words are very clear.
Perhaps one of the reasons that many people struggle with being judgmental and condemning of others is because they lack a true awareness of their own sin and their own need for forgiveness. We live in a world that often rationalizes sin and downplays the seriousness of it. That’s why the teaching of Saint Ignatius is so important for us today. We need to rekindle a sense of the seriousness of our sin. This is not done simply to create guilt and shame. It’s done to foster a desire for mercy and forgiveness.
If you can grow in a deeper awareness of your own sin before God, one of the effects will be that it is then easier to be less judgmental and condemning of others. A person who sees his sin is more apt to be merciful to other sinners. But a person who struggles with self-righteousness will most certainly also struggle with being judgmental and condemning.
Reflect, today, upon your own sin. Spend time trying to understand how ugly sin is and try to grow in a healthy disdain for it. As you do, and as you beg our Lord for His mercy, pray also that you will be able to offer that same mercy you receive from God to others. As mercy flows from Heaven to your own soul, it must then also be shared. Share the mercy of God with those all around you and you will discover the true value and power of this Gospel teaching of our Lord.
My most merciful Jesus, I thank You for Your infinite mercy. Help me to see clearly my sin so that I, in turn, may see my need for Your mercy. As I do, dear Lord, I pray that my heart will be open to that mercy so that I can both receive it and share it with others. Make me a true instrument of Your divine grace. Jesus, I trust in You.
 
Monday 2nd Week of Lent 2025
Opening Prayer: Lord God, when you revealed yourself to us, you revealed yourself as Merciful Love. I am not worthy of the gift of your mercy. Help me to welcome it and experience it to the full.
Encountering the Word of God
1. Be Merciful: In the Old Testament, God commanded Israel: “Be holy, for I the Lord your God, am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). Here, Jesus reformulates the teaching of Leviticus and replaces the command to imitate God’s holiness (Hebrew: kadosh), with a command to imitate his mercy (Hebrew: hesed). To be holy was “to be set apart.” This meant that Israel was called to be set apart from the other nations to serve and worship the Lord as a holy people. The subtle difference between the divine attributes of holy and merciful “points to a difference between the Old Covenant and the New. The quest for holiness in ancient Israel meant that God’s people had to separate themselves from everything ungodly, unclean, and impure, including Gentiles and sinners (Leviticus 15:31; 20:26). Jesus gives holiness a new focus, defining it as mercy that reaches out to others and no longer divides people into segregated camps or disqualifies some and not others to enter the family of God” (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Old and New Testament, 1843).
2. Stop Judging and Condemning; Forgive and Give: The command to be merciful is followed by four concrete ways to live mercy. The first concerns how we judge others. This refers especially to judging the heart and intentions of someone else. There is nothing wrong with objectively judging external actions as good or evil, right or wrong. But our judgment needs to stop there. The judgment of a person’s heart – their conscience, deepest intentions, psychological state – is best reserved to God alone. The second way to live mercy concerns moving from judgment to condemnation. This means pronouncing judgment against someone or pronouncing them as guilty. This doesn’t mean turning a blind eye to evil or being naïve about moral evil, but in line with being merciful and not judging a person’s heart, it means leaving the ultimate sentencing to God, who, once again, knows all things and can see into the depths of a person’s heart. The two prohibitions against judging and condemning are complemented by two exhortations to forgive and be generous in giving to others. If we forgive, we will be forgiven. And if we give, gifts will be given to us. And God, as we know, is never outdone in generosity.
3. God’s Merciful Covenant: The First Reading, taken from Daniel’s confession of the sins of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, complements the Gospel, which asks us to forgive in order to be forgiven. Daniel is contemplating the prophetic words of Jeremiah about the 70 years of exile in Babylon (Jeremiah 25:11). The year of Daniel’s prayer was 539 B.C. (see Daniel 9:1), and Daniel was aware that the end of the 70 years of exile was near. He fasted, dressed in sackcloth, placed ash on himself, and turned his face to God in prayer. In the prayer, he made a confession of national sin and an appeal for restoration. “He is aware that Israel’s distress is the just result of its disloyalty to the Lord and his covenant, yet he petitions Yahweh to restore blessings to his disgraced people” (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: Old and New Testament, 1469). Throughout his prayer, Daniel remembers God’s fidelity to his covenant and his merciful love (Hebrew: hesed). In response to Daniel’s prayer, the angel Gabriel appeared and announced a penitential time of “70 weeks of years” (Daniel 9:24). The 490 years announced by Gabriel comes to fulfillment in the time of Jesus, the anointed one, who was crucified for our sins, established a new and “strong covenant,” and foretold the downfall of the Jerusalem Temple in A.D. 70 (see Daniel 9:24-27). 
 
Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, you are Mercy Incarnate. Your entire life speaks of God’s merciful love. Even as you were dying on the Cross, you begged your Father and ours to forgive those who crucified you and hurled insult upon you. I have no reason not to be merciful toward all.
 
Monday 2nd Week of Lent
Opening Prayer:  Lord, help me to listen and understand your words so that I may be more and more the disciple that you intended me to be when you made me. 
Encountering Christ:
1. The Father’s Mercy: The Father is infinitely merciful. He is ready to forgive anyone who asks for pardon, no matter how big the sin is. He forgave the disobedience of Adam and Eve—the greatest sin in history. He would have forgiven Judas if he had asked for forgiveness. Even if our desire for forgiveness is not perfect–even if our motivation is only to avoid going to hell rather than sorrow for having hurt others or offended God–the Father is willing to forgive. The Father’s mercy is to be the measure of his disciples’ mercy. 
2. What Is Mercy?: Jesus explained in this Gospel what he expects when he asks for mercy: Stop judging. Stop condemning. Forgive. Too often we compare ourselves to others because we want to justify ourselves. That leads to judging and condemning others. Instead, we should strive to be merciful because everyone is living a difficult life! Mercy requires that we assume everyone is doing their best and, like ourselves, often falling short of their own ideals. By looking at others this way, forgiveness becomes much easier.
3. Generosity Is Essential: Jesus didn’t merely ask us to forgive—he asks for our generosity. We are not in this world merely to seek our own salvation. Jesus asks us to reach out and share our God-given gifts with others. An old saying warns, “No one gets into heaven by themselves—everyone must bring a friend.” Every day, we have opportunities to help others get one small step closer to heaven. And we grow closer to Jesus when we help others to grow closer to him. 
Conversing with Christ: Lord, you have asked me to be merciful and have taught me what mercy means. If I want to be merciful as the Father is merciful, I need to love others and help to draw them closer to you. You have given me many gifts and talents which I sometimes use to serve myself—for my own comfort, entertainment