NEITHER DO I CONDEMN YOU

PRAYER MOMENT  

Monday 7 April 2014

NEITHER DO I CONDEMN YOU

Pause. Be still before God.

Reading: “If there is one of you who has not sinned, let him be the one to cast the first stone at her.” (John 8:1-11)

Reflection. How quick we are to judge others! It rises in us like an automatic reaction. Someone does or says something that doesn’t fit the world as I have created it and so I make no room for them. I knew a sister, not long dead, who went the other way almost to exaggeration. When told that someone had come into the house and stolen some money she said, “Ah well, he probably needed it.” While others were trying to call the police she was counselling doing nothing. In the incident of the woman caught in the act of adultery the “scribes and Pharisees” were quick to use the woman for their purposes. They had zero compassion for her. Jesus sees through their scheme and turns the spotlight on them. He longs to forgive, not to condemn.

  

Prayer. Lord, it is so easy to rise up in judgement of others. Give me a heart of compassion like yours. Amen.

David Harold-Barry SJ