Saturday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time

A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory. - Matthew 12:20

Micah names the men who plan iniquity on their beds and execute it in the morning when the power is theirs. Fields seized. Houses taken. Inheritance stripped. The plan and the execution are both deliberate - the couch is where it forms, the morning light is when it lands.

A bruised reed he will not break. The contrast Matthew draws by quoting Isaiah over Jesus is total. The men who execute the morning plan use their power against what is weakest. The servant does the opposite: he does not add to the bruising of what is already bruised. He does not extinguish the smoldering. He tends what remains.

The man who has been bruised - by the morning plan of someone else's power, by his own failures, by the weight of the week - is not broken in the servant's hands. He may be a bruised reed. He can still play.

Name the bruised reed in your life - the man or the relationship or the calling that has been damaged and is not what it was. And name the smoldering wick - the barely-lit thing that could still illuminate if it is tended rather than extinguished. One act of the servant's tending this week: not pushing harder, not giving up - tending what remains until the justice comes to victory. And carry [name]: Lord, tend him. The bruised reed is still a reed. Do not break what remains.

Lord, I am a bruised reed in some places this week. Do not break me. Tend what remains. And give me the servant's gentleness for the bruised and smoldering people around me. Precious Blood of Jesus, save us. Amen.