A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew (Mt 25:31-46)
“Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.”
Jesus speaks to the disciples about his second coming and the criteria for judgment. In his glory, the Son of Man will sit upon his throne, all the angels with him, and all the nations will be assembled before him. “And he will separate them one from another,” Jesus says, “as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” To the ones who showed mercy to the hungry and thirsty, to the stranger and the naked, to the ill and those in prison, the Lord will say to them: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” To the ones who failed to show mercy, the Lord will say: “Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.” Jesus makes clear beyond question how to treat others. In treating others with mercy, the person we care for, no matter their name, is Jesus: “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”
God, just as you spoke to the Israelites through Moses, you speak through Jesus, your final and best Word: “Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy.” In showing mercy to others, time after time I come to recognize my shortcomings and turn to Jesus as the perfect model of holiness. How much I need to recognize your mercy, Lord, as I do to others as I would have them do to me. Give me the grace, Lord, to be a brother, to have the opportunity to try again to be holy as you are holy. Show me today and help me see the face of Christ in those who need mercy.
From the responsorial psalm: “Let the words of my mouth and the thought of my heart find favor before you, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer. Your words, Lord, are Spirit and life.”
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.