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Wednesday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Ezekiel 9:1–7; 10:18–22
Today’s reading from Ezekiel is difficult.
It makes us uncomfortable.
And it should.
Ezekiel sees the judgment of Jerusalem.
He sees violence.
He sees mysterious figures passing through the city.
He hears a terrible command:
do not look with pity,
show no mercy.
When we hear this as Christians, we struggle.
Because in the Gospel, God does look on us with pity.
God does show mercy.
It is because of mercy that the Father sent His beloved Son into the world.
It is because of mercy that Jesus healed the sick,
welcomed sinners,
ate with the rejected,
and gave His life on the cross.
From the cross, He did not say:
show no mercy.
He said:
“Father, forgive them.”
So how do we read a passage like this?
We must read it carefully.
We must not isolate it from the whole Bible.
Ezekiel is trying to understand the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC.
The city has fallen.
The temple has been defiled.
The people have suffered a terrible national disaster.
And Ezekiel sees this tragedy as judgment.
But judgment in the Bible is never the whole story.
Again and again, the Bible moves from judgment to a new beginning.
The flood ends with Noah.
Babel is followed by the call of Abraham.
Jerusalem falls, but a remnant remains.
In today’s vision, some people are marked on the forehead.
They are those who mourn over the sins of the city.
They do not join the evil.
They do not pretend that everything is fine.
They grieve.
They resist.
They belong to the beginning God will make after disaster.
This mark reminds us of another mark:
the sign of the cross.
As Christians, we have been marked by Christ.
Marked not for violence,
but for mercy.
Marked not to escape the suffering of the world,
but to stand inside it with faith, truth, and love.
Ezekiel’s vision also reminds us that sin is serious.
Indifference is serious.
A city, a nation, a Church, a heart, can become sick when people stop mourning evil.
When injustice no longer hurts us,
when cruelty no longer shocks us,
when lies no longer disturb us,
something in us has already died.
Today, let us ask for a heart that still knows how to mourn evil,
and still knows how to choose love.
For we are marked with the cross of Christ,
and the cross is the sign of mercy that saves.
Biblical Reflections on the Gospel of Matthew
Scripture Attribution
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition,
copyright © 1989, 1993
the Division of Christian Education of the National Council
of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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© 2025 Krakus.
Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0
(Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial).