
Day 29 – Fairness Vs. Justice
Cantonese
Mandarin
English
"Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when your son returns who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf. "

He couldn't help but put under the microscope the difference between the father's treatment of him and his brother.
So, he tended to remember every detail of the incident and the events that followed. He kept a perfect record of every word spoken. He tried to analyse the case to his favour, oftentimes through laying blames on others by finding faults in them, in their words and their actions.
We tend to mix up fairness with justice. "Fairness" is subjective and relative by nature. We often take sides when we talk about fairness. It is rarely presented fairly and objectively. Fairness to one side is oftentimes unfairness to the other. What is "fairness" then if it is biased? On the other hand, justice should be perceived and exercised objectively. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines the virtue of justice this way:
Justice is the moral virtue that consists in the constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbour (CCC 1807). What is due to our neighbours depends on what are rightfully theirs, which ties to their needs or interests. Without this concept we tend to protect our own interests instead. Justice, when perceived and exercised in this light, should detach us from judging others. It should elevate us to look beyond. It should liberate us from all sorts of bondages and chains manifested in the elder son. It should enable us to see from the father’s and the giver’s perspective.
Besides, graces and gifts are freely given to us by God unconditionally. They are not earned. It is not transactional in nature. As such, those gifts and graces are to be freely received by us.
In the spirit of "freely receiving those gifts", we should not fixate our eyes on the reasoning behind the giver's choices which we are unable to comprehend and we do not have the right to cast any doubts.
REFLECTION

Do you find yourself enslaved by unforgiveness which you are unable to break away from?
Would you like your Heavenly Father to set you free from the prison of unforgiveness?
TODAY'S PRAYER

I ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen!
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.
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Whenever I am about to hold grudges against others, ‘forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us’ in the Lord’s prayer will pop up in my mind. Oh, Lord, please help me to be more forgiving to the people around me !
I have a tendency to keep a perfect record of how others have offended me. Last Sunday Bulletin, our pastor taught us to forgive by looking at the Jesus in the Crucifix. He forgives those who crucified Him.