Exodus 33: 7-11, 34:4-9, 28; Psalm 103; Matthew 13: 36-43
The psalm’s antiphon reinforces: “The Lord is kind and merciful.” In a verse of Exodus that is not included today, Moses asks to know God’s beautiful name. (“I am who I am” is not enough). God places Moses in a cleft of a rock and passes by, calling out a new name: “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness…” The Hebrew word for merciful is rchm. Hebrew does not print vowels, so there is a play on words here: rachum means merciful and rechem means womb. God’s is a womb-compassion. “Can a mother forget her baby?” God asks through Isaiah (49). “As far as the east is from the west so far God removes our transgressions from us.” Jesus reinforces this good news, explaining the parable of weeds sown among wheat. Remember, we are not to pull up weeds lest we mistake what is weed. So too, we are to trust that God will do the judging at the end of our life. Do not judge is the message between the lines: not anyone else, not even your own self.
When have you rooted something out of your life that later you discovered was a blessing? When have you judged someone or something or some whole segment of society as “weed”? Place your judgment in God’s womb compassion. How does God judge it? When you looked again at your image of God yesterday, was it a beautiful image? Ask God to show you God’s beauty.
O Beauty, ever ancient, ever new, late have we loved you, yet never loved we till now. (Augustine). Take into your womb compassion all those who do not experience beauty in their lives.