LOVE IN ACTION by Fr. Aa ron Peters
Four days after his election, Pope Francis said in a homily: “Mercy is the Lord’s most powerful message!” He made it clear that divine compassion and mercy would be at the heart of his papal ministry. Thus it is not surprising that in his actions and what he has said since then have evidenced his vision of the Church’s beating heart of mercy in imitation of her Lord and Savior. He reminds us in his Papal Bull, The Face of Mercy, that in Jesus, God makes love “visible and tangible.” Love, he says, “indicates something concrete: intentions, attitudes and behaviors that are shown in daily living.” Saint John the Evangelist tells us that God is Love (Jn 1:48 see also 1 Jn 4:7-21). And since Mercy is Love in action, it follows, that God is Mercy. Let us take a few steps back and look at Moses and the Israelites in the desert as presented in the Book of Numbers (Nb. 21:4-9). Here we find that the people were fed up with their long trek through the desert and were disgusted with the very food God had provided them. They bitterly complain. In short, they sinned against God. God sends serpents which bite the people and many die. The Israelites go to Moses and say, “We have sinned in complaining against the Lord and you. Pray for the Lord to take the serpents from us.” Coming to their senses they cry out for mercy. God tells Moses to mount a serpent on a pole and when those who are bitten look upon this bronze serpent they will be healed. In effect, what happens is that the people, by gazing on the serpent lifted up on a pole, must look upon the face of their personal sins as well as the primordial sin committed by Adam and Eve; our original parents fell for the allurements of the Ancient Serpent (Gn 3). So did the Israelites in the desert. So do we in our modern-day lives. Another way of putting it is to say that the Israelites go to confession and are healed. Saint Peter, writing in his First Letter assures us that Christ carried our sins to the tree in his own body (1 Pt 2:21-24). He became sin for our sake. We are asked in this Year of Mercy to look on the Face of Jesus lifted high on the cross and see in his face the reflection of our sins, the sins that he took upon himself for our salvation. In doing so, the Lord offers us healing. We look on the face of Jesus every time we go to confession and receive the healing compassion of God in absolution. The Church herself becomes the face of Jesus by providing the sacramental life. Within each sacrament there is some form of penitential act or rite – at some point we ask for mercy. There is always a means by which we can gaze at the face of Jesus and see ourselves reflected in him, as we really are, to our shame, because he did indeed carry our sins to the tree. And the Lord Jesus Christ, Mercy Incarnate, offers us healing and strength to carry on. To be merciful, then is to be Christ-like, that is, to be forgiving, compassionate, understanding, and loving. The stories of the lepers and of the blind man are examples of Jesus’ Mercy:
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Kansas Monks
The lepers stood at a distance and cried out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Bartimeus, a blind begger sitting by the roadside cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me” (Lk 17: 11-19 and Mk 10: 46-52). These are common in the Gospel and mercy is always shown. Jesus commands us to “be merciful, even as our Father is merciful,” for “if we forgive others their transgressions, our heavenly Father will forgive us. But if we do not forgive others, neither will our Father forgive our transgressions.” (See Luke 6:36 and Matthew 6:14-15) If we are not experiencing the joy that -Pope Francis comes from in God’s mercy, it may be that we are not being merciful to others. Personally, I have to sit up and take note of Pope Francis’ instructions that the Holy Year is “dedicated to living out in our daily lives the mercy which God constantly extends to all of us.” Putting the Beatitudes into practice is the best way to perform Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy. I don’t know about most people, but I know that I find it difficult to be merciful. I tend to be overly judgmental, not giving others the freedom to make mistakes, the same mistakes that I ask, nay, that I demand the freedom to make myself. I hang my head in shame. Yet Our Lord constantly shows mercy to me – giving me the courage to perservere. And so, Pope Francis challenges each of us to give serious consideration to how our own individual concrete actions might help make God’s mercy more evident in our world today. Be willing to be changed. Or as St. Benedict very well might say, “Submit yourself to obedience with all humility.” Let the mercy of God transform you into a new creation.
“Mercy is the Lord’s most powerful message!”
