December 10, 2010, Second Friday of Advent, Year A

Reflection (The readings are below, for your reference)

Today I reflect on the times when I did not give a good person the benefit of the doubt, when I uttered a harsh word unnecessarily, when I jumped to a conclusion, when I made an unfair judgment. I know that our good God forgives readily and I pray that I may be swift to forgive myself and move beyond shame and into redemption – sweet delicious redemption and forgiveness. To be “like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season.” Let it be, let it be.

What is your reflection today?

Namaste! Amen!

The Readings

Isaiah 48:17-19

Thus says the Lord,

   your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:

I am the Lord your God,

   who teaches you for your own good,

   who leads you in the way you should go.

O that you had paid attention to my commandments!

   Then your prosperity would have been like a river,

   and your success like the waves of the sea;

your offspring would have been like the sand,

   and your descendants like its grains;

their name would never be cut off

   or destroyed from before me.

Psalm 1:1-4,6

Happy are those

   who do not follow the advice of the wicked,

or take the path that sinners tread,

   or sit in the seat of scoffers;

but their delight is in the law of the Lord,

   and on God’s law they meditate day and night.

They are like trees

   planted by streams of water,

which yield their fruit in its season,

   and their leaves do not wither.

In all that they do, they prosper.

The wicked are not so,

   but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,

   but the way of the wicked will perish.

Matthew 11:16-19

“But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another,

‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”

The readings are from the website below, with tiny adjustments to make the text more inclusive.

http://bible.oremus.org/