Lord Jesus, work miracles of mercy in the souls of the miserable, especially those trapped in sin, because they so need Your mercy. Help us all to trust in Your mercy.
Sin
Prayer of forgiveness
Jesus, you forgive me even though you know I am going to sin again. Teach me to be that generous with my forgiveness.
Prayer
O Jesus, destroy sin in me, the sin which has disfigured Your face and disfigured my soul created to Your image and likeness. But to bring about this destruction, I must share Your Calvary, Your Cross. Deign then, O Lord, to unite to Your Passion all the sufferings, little or great, of my life, that they may purify me and prepare me to rise from light to light, until I am completely transformed in You.
Prayer
O Jesus Crucified, give me the grace to understand the great malice of sin.
Forgiveness
Regardless of where you have been or what you have done, be at peace. The same God who forgave Moses the murderer, Rahab the prostitute, David the adulterer, and Peter the denier will forgive you. All you have to do is seek that forgiveness with a contrite heart. The only sin God won’t forgive is the one you will not ask forgiveness for.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, reach out to us sinful souls. Take the first steps toward us. In our need and shame, we are afraid to approach You. So, please draw us with compassionate mercy to Your loving Heart.
Can we be sure that our prayers are heard?
Our prayers, which we offer in Jesus’ name, go to the place where Jesus’ prayers also went: to the heart of our heavenly Father. We can be sure of this if we trust Jesus. For Jesus has opened again for us the way to heaven, which had been barred by sin. Since Jesus is the way to God, Christians conclude their prayers with the phrase, “we ask this through Jesus Christ, our Lord.”
Envy
Envy is sadness and annoyance at the sight of another’s well-being and the desire to acquire unjustly what others have. Anyone who wishes other people ill commits a serious sin. Envy decreases when we try to rejoice more and more in the accomplishments and gifts of others, when we believe in God’s benevolent providence for ourselves as well, and when we set our hearts on true wealth, which consists of the fact that we already participate in God’s life through the Holy Spirit.
Keep holy Sunday
A Catholic Christian attends Holy Mass on Sunday or on the vigil of Sunday. On that day he refrains from all work that would prevent him from worshipping God or disturb the festive, joyful, restful, and restorative character of the day.
Since Sunday is an Easter celebration that occurs each week, Christians from the earliest times have gathered together on that day to celebrate and thank their Redeemer and to reunite themselves with him and with others who are redeemed. So it is a central duty of every conscientious Catholic Christian to “keep holy” Sunday and the other holy days of the Church. One is exempted from it only by urgent family duties and important responsibilities in society. Because participation in the Sunday Eucharist is fundamental for a Christian life, the Church explicitly declares that it is a serious sin to stay away from Sunday Mass without good reason.
Sunday is a genuine service to the good of society, because it is a sign of opposition to the total absorption of man by the working world.
Therefore in lands that have a Christian character, Christians not only demand the governmental preservation of Sunday, they also do not ask others to do work that they themselves do not want to do on Sunday. Everyone in creation should take part in this “breather”.
The Christian Sunday has three essential elements: (1) It recalls the creation of the world and communicates the festive splendor of God’s goodness to the passage of time. (2) It recalls the “eighth day of creation”, when the world was made new in Christ (thus a prayer from the Easter Vigil says: “You have wonderfully created man and even more wonderfully restored him.”). (3) It includes the theme of rest, not just to sanctify the interruption of work, but to point even now toward man’s eternal rest in God.
Saints and sinners
Why worry excessively about what came before? Why obsess over your past sins? God is much more interested in your future than in your past. We have a God who “makes all things new.” And in that we find hope.
It is a sad commentary indeed, but religious people are often tempted to trap others in their past, nail them to the cross of the mistakes they have made, using religion itself to affect this imprisonment. This is as true today as it was in the time of Christ when the mob brought the woman caught in adultery before him.
In one of the great one-liners of the entire Bible, Jesus disarms them: “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Our solidarity in sin ought to awaken in us a greater compassion for one another. At this prompting, they drifted away, one by one until Jesus was left alone with the woman.
Then Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin anymore.” How rich is that little word, “Go.” Again, what is being emphasized is the future not the past, straining on to what lies ahead, not obsessing with what lies behind.
Do you feel terribly imprisoned by your past? Perhaps you’ve done something terrible, something awful and shameful and every time you think of it, you cringe. Or perhaps someone has harmed you so severely that you just can’t let go of the hurt and you continue to seethe with resentment. Perhaps you feel that you’ve done something so wrong that not even God can forgive you. You don’t even bother going to confession because you’re just too ashamed, convinced that God wouldn’t forgive you.
What I want you to know right here and now is that there is a way out, a way forward, a path opening up in the desert.
You might be miseria (in misery) but standing right in front of you is Misericordia (mercy).
– Father Robert Barron
Prières et méditations catholiques 