1 Tim 1:1-2, 12-14 / Luke 6:39-42
When we want to send well-wishes to someone, we would say things like "wishing you blue skies and everything nice" or "may you be healthy, wealthy and wise" and other similar nice things.
Those are well-wishes, and we sincerely wish for someone what we ourselves would want for ourselves.
In the 1st reading, what St. Paul wished for Timothy was something profound and unique when he said: wishing you grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and from Christ Jesus our Lord.
We might think that it was a rather overly religious kind of wishing and only religious superiors and bishops and cardinals who use those kind of words.
But when we think about it, it is precisely those grace and mercy that we need most in our lives.
It is by God's mercy that we are spared the punishment from our sins, and it is something that we don't deserve and it is only God who grants us His mercy unconditionally.
It is by God's grace that we are saved and the fact is that we can't save ourselves from our sins. Only God can do that for us and He did it through Jesus our Saviour.
And it is by God's grace and mercy that we won't pick on the splinter in the eyes of others because we know we have a plank in our own eyes.
Indeed, God grants us His grace and mercy unconditionally. It is something that we don't deserve or have a right to it.
If we can see that, then God's grace and mercy will give us the peace that is the greatest blessing from God.