The Catholic Sun :: Phoenix Diocesan Newspaper

The mercy of God, embodied in Christ, scandalized the Scribes and Pharisees. When Jesus called tax collectors and prostitutes to be His followers, when He ate meals in the homes of people with unsavory reputations, and when He forgave sin, the contemporary religious leaders opposed him bitterly. It was as if they had forgotten the wisdom of Psalm 136, which repeats 26 times the wondrous phrase, “…for His mercy endures forever.”

How easy for us, as well, in 2007, to forget how rich God is in mercy (Cf. Eph 2:4). Advances in science, medicine and technology, while bringing many advantages to the human family, have also spawned an exaggerated claim of human autonomy and an uneasy skepticism about God and His mercy. What need, some contend, have we of God in an era of amazing technological advances? But, in fact, the human heart longs for far more than technology and science can offer.

Jesus, Mercy Incarnate

Every part of Jesus’ life proclaims the merciful love of God: His words, His actions, His very person. He knows our deepest hurts and concerns. He knows of what we are made and what we need. As John Paul II, in his encyclical Dives in Misericordia (Rich in Mercy), wrote of the mercy of Jesus (#2), “He Himself makes it incarnate and personifies it. He Himself, in a certain sense, is mercy. To the person who sees it in Him — and finds it in Him — God becomes ‘visible’ in a particular way as the Father ‘who is rich in mercy.’”

When the Pharisees complained about Jesus’ merciful outreach to tax collectors and sinners, He told them, quoting the Prophet Hosea (Mt 9:13), “Go and learn the meaning of the words, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

“Go and learn the meaning of mercy” is a highly appropriate exhortation of Jesus for us today. Unless we discover the meaning of this fundamental truth about God, then every other dimension of God is thrown off kilter. We end up with a stilted and shrunken understanding of God that hinders our faith and inhibits our hope and charity.

But, thankfully, the Church constantly celebrates and proclaims the mercy of God, helping us to discover with joy the true nature of our Triune Lord, and moving us to be merciful in return. Of course, this is what the fifth Beatitude is all about (Mt 5:7), “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

The Practice of Mercy

The Church has a long and rich tradition of practicing and proclaiming mercy. For many centuries, she has encouraged the practice of both “spiritual works of mercy” and “corporal works of mercy.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains (#2447), “The works of mercy are charitable actions by which we come to the aid of our neighbor in his spiritual and bodily necessities. Instructing, advising, consoling, comforting are spiritual works of mercy, as are forgiving and bearing wrongs patiently. The corporal works of mercy consist especially in feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and burying the dead.”

The works of mercy are a response to human misery, an offer of loving service to persons who are needy and in pain. Just as the suffering of others moved Jesus to compassion and prompted Him to heal and to forgive, so His grace, present within His followers, moves us to carry on His work. Our worship of God, who is mercy incarnate, inspires us to put that mercy into practice.

The practice of mercy goes beyond the strict requirements of justice. Justice, while certainly necessary in this world, needs something more to bring it to completion. It needs mercy. As John Paul II writes in Dives in Misericordia (#12), “The experience of the past and of our own time demonstrates that justice alone is not enough, that it can even lead to the negation and destruction of itself, if that deeper power, which is love, is not allowed to shape human life in its various dimensions.”

Divine Mercy Devotion

The 20th century, which witnessed so much injustice and bloodshed, also witnessed the flourishing of the Divine Mercy Devotion. The chosen messenger of this devotion was a humble Polish woman born in 1905 named Helena Kowalska who entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy and received her religious name Sister Maria Faustina.

While her life seemed unimportant to the movers and shakers of this world and, in fact, to most observers, given that she spent many of her days working in the kitchen, hoeing in the garden, and answering the convent doorbell. But, throughout all of this, she experienced a rich interior closeness to God. The Lord entrusted to her this message (“Diary,” 1059): “Encourage souls to place great trust in my fathomless mercy. Let the weak, sinful soul have no fear to approach me, for even if it had more sins than there are grains of sand in the world, all will be drowned in the immeasurable depths of my mercy.”

The Divine Mercy Devotion, fostered through St. Faustina, consists of four elements: an artistic image of Christ that suggests the outpouring of His mercy, the feast of Divine Mercy celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter each year, the chaplet prayed with rosary beads, and the Holy Hour of Mercy prayed at 3 p.m. All of these elements of the Divine Mercy Devotion were endorsed and approved by Pope John Paul II, who also canonized St. Faustina.

If you are not yet familiar with this devotion, I urge you to learn about it. Let it enrich your life of prayer and assist you to greater holiness. One of the prayers of the Chaplet gives a taste of the spiritual depth of this devotion: “Eternal Father, I offer you the body and blood, soul and divinity of your dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world.”

Through devotion like this and by a determined effort to practice mercy each day, we can faithfully live the fifth Beatitude: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”