The Mercy of God

 Dives in Misericordia (Rich in Mercy), which I read shortly after it was issued by John Paul in 1980, influenced me more than any other book. By a providential grace, I read it just before the heartbreaking death, by suicide, of my wife's brother Al...the singular, incomparable tragedy of our shared life. Al was endearing and admirable in a million ways: gentle, kind, intelligent, athletic, handsome, inquisitive, charming. He suffered emotional distress gravely and heroically for many years. He fought it with all the resources available to him: psychology, "Recovery" self-help groups which he led, healing through prayer, exercise, a beautiful relationship with a lovely woman who loved him dearly. There was nothing that he could have done that he didn't do to overcome his distress. Before his (apparently) final act, he lit a candle...surely a gesture of hope and prayer. Before that he assisted his elderly stepfather in taking off his boots. 

His wake and funeral were extraordinary. There is nothing like a young death from a big family to bring out huge numbers of grievers/comforters. The kindness, compassion and love of all these people was overwhelming. A single thought gripped my mind:  "If all these people are so merciful, how much more so is God, who is full of mercy, the source of all mercy."

At that point, the Mercy of God, became the defining reality of my life. Everything else came to be seen in the light of this.

What is Mercy?

Mercy is the response to sin and suffering by goodness, generosity, abundance, compassion, strength, and love.

Without sin or suffering, you do not have mercy. So, in the Garden of Eden and after the second coming of Christ there is no mercy. Within God's very self, there is no mercy, as he has neither sin nor suffering. So, we may say that mercy is the defining form of God's relationship to us in this life, finite-dependent-sinful creatures that we are. It will have no place after this life in the eternity of heaven. And it had no place in the life of God prior to creation. The exercise of freedom by us, his creatures, in choosing evil and the consequential suffering  is what elicited from his infinite goodness the reality of Mercy.

Imagine a joyous wedding party where everyone is happy, thriving, celebrating:  the bride and groom are ecstatic, the parents and family overflowing with joy, all the guests are dressed up, satisfied and euphoric. At this moment there is love, joy, hope, generosity...but no real mercy, because there is evident here no sin or suffering. And so heaven we are told is like a wedding feast.

 Mercy in Context and Relationship

 In the teaching of John Paul, following the revelations to St. Faustina, Mercy is not a monotone; it is held in tension with truth, justice and holy wrath. This is fully in accord with the clear teaching of Jesus himself as well as that of the saints and the Church throughout the ages. 

The mass readings during this month of November are from Revelation and the gospels and deal with the end times: descriptions of terror, wrath, punishment on Babylon, the great serpent and all evil. They are fierce and frightening. We are directed this month, ending the liturgical year, to consider the Last Things: death, judgement, heaven and hell. Clearly, God's Mercy is not a dismissal of judgement, Truth, punishment and wrath. Rather, it remains in tension with these dimensions of God's relation to sin, error and evil. 

We might say that the Catholic Church, in our age, since WWII, has shifted its theological gestalt to highlight more clearly, especially in light of St. Faustina's revelations, the victory of God's Mercy. For example, we now grant funeral masses for victims of suicide. This is probably due to the enhanced grasp of God's goodness as well as a development in anthropology/psychology and our understanding of the forces that diminish freedom and therefore culpability. However, with the Church of the ages, we kneel in awe of a Holy God, powerful in Mercy but also in truth, justice and wrath.

Disordering, Exaggeration, and Cheapening of Mercy

A troubling development during the pontificate of Pope Francis is presentation of Mercy as a monopolistic absolute, uprooted from its connections with other realities of the Divine. And so we read that Mercy defines the very essence of God, as if there is mercy within the Divine, even before the exercise of creaturely freedom. And so there is dismissal of the reality of hell, accountability and judgement. Mercy as kindness and acceptance dominates as to dismiss or diminish Truth.  Moral absolutes, around sexuality especially, are minimized on behalf of a soft love and a cheap mercy. Mention of moral absolutes, punishment, chastity, Lucifer, hell, law, spiritual warfare...all of this, essential to our legacy, is reconfigured as legalism, dogmatism, rigidity, clericalism, and so forth.  

The result is a cheapened, soft, effete kind of mercy as unconditional acceptance and affirmation, void of masculine virtues of fortitude, purity,  zeal, and fear of the Lord.

Real Mercy

The real deal, that we learn from St. Faustina and John Paul and the entire tradition: Mercy is even more magnificent in relation to the holiness, the justice, the wrath of God. It triumphs, not by dismissing or diminishing those mysteries, but by miraculously encompassing them. This is not something we can understand. We can only kneel and adore before it.