Tuesday 21 July 2020

Today is Tuesday the 21 July in the 16th week of Ordinary Time.  

Jonathan Veira sings ‘The Lord’s my Shepherd’. Spend a moment now coming before the Lord the Good shepherd… talk as one friend speaks to another as you begin to pray.  

Today’s reading is from the Prophet Micah.    

Micah 7:14-15, 18-20

Shepherd your people with your staff,
   the flock that belongs to you,
which lives alone in a forest
   in the midst of a garden land;
let them feed in Bashan and Gilead
   as in the days of old.
As in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt,
   show us marvellous things. Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
   and passing over the transgression
   of the remnant of your possession?
He does not retain his anger for ever,
   because he delights in showing clemency.
He will again have compassion upon us;
   he will tread our iniquities under foot.
You will cast all our sins
   into the depths of the sea.
You will show faithfulness to Jacob
   and unswerving loyalty to Abraham,
as you have sworn to our ancestors
   from the days of old.

The writer describes God as a shepherd.   A shepherd who has taken his sheep to graze in fertile pasture lands. Can I picture that scene?   Can I place myself in the scene? I stay with it for while.  

There is also raw emotion in today’s description of God.   A God who experiences deep anger.  Is that how I see God?    

Yesterday we read about some of the things that make God angry: injustice, pride, unkindness. The writer goes on to describe God as not staying angry forever, in fact as delighting in showing mercy, having compassion on us.  Reflect on this as we hear the passage read again. 

Talk to God in these final moments - as directly and openly as you can, knowing that He understands our emotions -  about whatever has surfaced for you in today’s meditation.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.