July 28, 2025 // Monday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time

Read the Word // Open your Bible to today’s Psalm: Psalm 106:19-20, 21-22, 23

Reflect on the Word // 

For many years, I had a bad habit of gossiping. It wasn’t just a habit, it was a security blanket. Because I struggled with feeling good enough on “my own,” I often felt the need to keep track of other’s shortcomings to feel better about myself. 

It wasn’t a good way to live and it did not make me feel good as a person. Being someone who stirs up gossip is exhausting. In the moment, I enjoyed it (I am ashamed to admit), but I would always have a gossip hangover, feeling the need to apologize later for what I had said or repeated. It was embarrassing.

Today’s Psalm is a perfect example of how this behavior feels. The Israelites “exchanged their glory for the image of a grass-eating bullock” (Psalm 106:20). Instead of dwelling in a place of peace and of God’s goodness, I used a  second-rate idol—security through gossip—as a substitute for true security in Jesus. 

Eventually I got to a place in my own journey with Jesus where deep healing made me less reliant on putting others down to make myself feel good. And the cycle of shame and regret subsided. I read a beautiful reflection recently that said shame is a natural reaction to a person’s inherent understanding of his dignity. When we feel shame, it’s not because we have been conditioned to be guilty. “Shame reminds us of our dignity,” writes Father Paul Scalia, “[and] repentance restores it” (Magnificat, March 2025).

The Israelites “forgot the God who saved them” (Psalm 106:21) again and again in the Old Testament, but when they remembered their dignity, their response was shame. The Psalmist reminds us that God is good, and will not destroy us for our sins but will show mercy.  

We all have areas of sin and suffering that replace our God-given glory with a grass-eating bullock. God allows us to suffer only because He wants us to remember our dignity and worth. We are created in His image and likeness. Anything less than that will never be enough.

Relate to the Lord // Do you know your God-given dignity? Ask Him to reveal it to you.