Scripture Reflection - September 13, 2026

Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Ezekiel 33: 7-9 | Romans 13: 8-10    | Matthew 18: 15-20

The Quality of Mercy is…

 often strained but not depleted

All I remember of my high school and college courses on Shakespeare are parts of the plots of a few plays, and that infamous line from The Merchant of Venice. In truth, it’s only been in the past few years of my life that I have begun to recall, within a few different contexts of my life, Portia’s entreaty to Shylock to spare Antonio’s life. In case this isn’t ringing a bell, she appeals to Shylock’s mercy with these words: “The quality of mercy is not strained; it drops like the gentle rain from heaven.”

I’ve always been awed by Portia’s bravery in appealing to the blood-thirsty Shylock’s compassion and mercy in an effort to save her loved one’s life. What, to me, remains powerful in her words about “the quality of mercy” is her conviction that Shylock, and the rest of us human beings, all possess the God-given capacity to activate mercy and compassion in our brokenhearted world. No exceptions! What a saving power this is indeed! Compassion, empathy, and forgiveness are what we’ve been assured are God’s gift to us, and also the abundant patrimony for us to spend with abandon in the world.

In today’s Gospel, the disciples are confused by Jesus telling them to be extravagant with their forgiveness. Similar to our day, revenge, ruthlessness, and the bullying presence of an occupying and illegal force shaped the tone of their times. Ordinary people, in such situations, grow resentful. From this place of unanchored anger, as Shakespeare reminds us, we can all blindly seek payback from those who are often innocent and without the means to defend themselves or satisfy the misplaced need for revenge. The cyclical nature of this troubling dynamic can only be broken by what the author Kathy Hendricks calls "the act of releasing others from our bitterness."

As I write this, the image of Jesus of Nazareth’s tortured body hanging on a cross, reminds me not only of the extent to which innocents continue suffer at the hands of ruthless power, but also how, from this very same place of unspeakable suffering, humans can still offer mercy to others.

I suppose today’s Gospel reminds us to think not only about the quantity of our mercy, but how abundantly and extravagantly we offer it to others in our lives and in our world today.

Perhaps it is only mercy, offered again and again from the places of our deepest suffering, that will save our brokenhearted world.

Sr. Arlene Flaherty, OP