Saturday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
January 20, 2024
Today’s Readings:
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/012024.cfm
Today, in God’s Lavish Mercy, our readings center on the themes of grief, honor, and mercy.
In the passage from 2 Samuel, Saul has been killed in battle. The news is brought to David by a scheming Amalekite who (later verses reveal) hopes to profit from his enterprise. He has stripped Saul’s dead body of its kingly insignia, obsequiously depositing it at David’s feet. The messenger expects David’s vengeful rejoicing and a hefty reward.
Instead David, with reverence and honor appropriate to a future king, launches a deep public mourning for Saul and Jonathan. It is a bereavement necessary to both cleanse and heal the community’s heart from all the strife leading up to it.
David seized his garments and rent them,
2 Samuel 1:11-12
and all the men who were with him did likewise.
They mourned and wept and fasted until evening
for Saul and his son Jonathan,
and for the soldiers of the LORD of the clans of Israel,
because they had fallen by the sword.
David’s lament is profound; it is ”splancha”, sprung from his innards, like the anguish Jesus felt for the suffering persons he encountered, as described in our Gospel.
A callous or indifferent heart cannot comprehend such pathos. Seeing it in Jesus, even his relatives thought him insane!
Jesus came with his disciples into the house.
Mark 3: 20-21
Again the crowd gathered,
making it impossible for them even to eat.
When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him,
for they said, “He is out of his mind.”
Our God is a God of boundless love
and impractical mercy.
David models a bit of that godliness.
Jesus is its complete Incarnation.
Poetry: Talking to Grief – Denise Levertov
Ah, Grief, I should not treat you
like a homeless dog
who comes to the back door
for a crust, for a meatless bone.
I should trust you.
I should coax you
into the house and give you
your own corner,
a worn mat to lie on,
your own water dish.
You think I don't know you've been living
under my porch.
You long for your real place to be readied
before winter comes. You need
your name,
your collar and tag. You need
the right to warn off intruders,
to consider
my house your own
and me your person
and yourself
my own dog.
Music: Lascia Ch’io Pianga (Let Me Weep)- Georg Frideric Handel – a single piece of beautiful music today in two version, an aria and an instrumental interpretation.
Julia Lezhneva – soprano
Lavish Mercy 
Sad yet Beautiful. Thank you Renee
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“Our God is a God of boundless love and impractical mercy.” I love that!
Thank you, Renee.❤️🙏
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