“The Lord is Kind and Merciful"

Today's Mass Readings

Of all ways in which God reveals his self in the Old Testament, the burning bush is perhaps the most spectacular and yet the most personal. As we read this reading, it is easy to get carried away with the burning bush, or God’s determination to save the people. However, equally significant is God’s self-revelation. God is Holy! Thus Moses is asked to take off his sandals. The cry of his people has become unbearable to God. Thus, as the Psalmist says in the Psalm response, “The Lord is kind and merciful.”
I read somewhere once, “To those who are willing to believe, every bush is a Burning Bush.” Isn’t that what Jesus is saying in today’s gospel reading? While Jesus thanks God for revealing himself to the childlike, he is also suggesting that to know God one must be childlike. And that defines the difference between those who accepted Jesus and rejected him. While the arrogance of religious leaders and those in power led them to reject him, the tax collectors and sinners welcomed him with simplicity.

Notice the paradox of God’s revelation – While it tells us who God is it also tells us who we are.

In simplicity and in childlike faith let us pray the Psalm response:

Bless the LORD, O my soul;
and all my being, bless his holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits.

He pardons all your iniquities,
he heals all your ills.
He redeems your life from destruction,
he crowns you with kindness and compassion.

The LORD secures justice
and the rights of all the oppressed.
He has made known his ways to Moses,
and his deeds to the children of Israel.

The Lord is kind and merciful.