Fausto Gomez OP
As human beings always trying to be happy, we need to be compassionate: “If you wish the happiness of the others, be compassionate. If you wish your own happiness, be compassionate†(Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness).
As followers of Christ, we are asked to be compassionate or merciful with all, if we wish to be happy here and hereafter. Faith asks Christians in particular – as Pope Francis urges us – to be instruments of mercy in the world, to imitate God the merciful Father, to follow the way of mercy of Jesus, our only Way, and, with the grace of the Holy Spirit, to answer the constant call of Mother Church to practice merciful love, the works of mercy.
The Beatitude “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy†(Mt 5:7) constitutes in a way “a synthesis of the whole of the Good News†(John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia, DM 8). St. Caesarius of Arles (470-543) writes: “Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. All wish to receive mercy, few are ready to show mercy to others…†He advises us: “You must show mercy in this life if you hope to receive it in the next.†
The merciful are called blessed “because they imitate God†(J. M. Cabodevilla). They forgive others always (Lk 6:37; Mt 18:21-22); if we do not forgive, we are not forgiven (Mt 6:14-15). Following Jesus’ example on the cross (Lk 23:34), they tend to excuse the sins of others. Jesus forgives and heals at the same time (Mk 2:1-12). The followers of Christ are called then to forgive and also to provide affective and effective help to those in need: the sick and wounded on the roads of life.
Mercy is God’s gift and our task – the task of being merciful to others. There are many merciful souls in our world, thanks God. Today many people are moved to compassion by the miseries and sufferings of others as it is movingly shown when peoples face natural or man-made calamities, such as an earthquake, a terrorist attack and personal miseries. Unfortunately, on the other hand, there are many other people who seem not compassionate but cruel and unjust.
Who are not truly merciful among us? In classical theology, we read that the envious are neither charitable nor merciful: they rejoice over the misfortunes of their neighbors. Neither the proud are merciful: they disrespect the others as inferior, and when misery visits them, the proud think they deserve it. Nor the selfish, who are concerned only with themselves and do not feel any passion when seeing the suffering others. Those who love all, except their enemies are not fully merciful, for mercy to be a sparkle of God’s mercy cannot be selective: we have to love all neighbors, including the enemies (Mt 5:43-48). The unjust and also those who are externally, rigidly, merely judicially just are not merciful. True merciful love purifies mere justice of its coldness, and aids it to go beyond “the eye for an eye†or “tit for tat†or the juridical mentality (J. M. Cabodevilla).
Love is merciful and envy, pride, selfishness are caused by lack of love, which is generous, humble and other-centered (cf. 1 Cor 13:4-7). We are all sinners and inclined to be selfish. Our merciful acts help us conquer our “fat ego†and be sensitive to the needs of others.
Mercy is compassion towards another needy person or group of persons. The mercy-giver, however, is not only a giver but also a mercy-receiver. The receiver of mercy also gives something to the giver: an occasion to practice mercy, an opportunity to love and be loved by a brother or sister. In Christian perspective, a true merciful act then has “a bilateral and reciprocal quality.†When this quality is absent “our actions are not yet true acts of mercy, nor has there yet been fully completed in us that conversion to which Christ has shown us by way of his words and example†(John Paul II, DM 14). The merciful person practices mercy not only because if not tomorrow the next day he or she will likewise be a receiver, but mainly because he or she is imitating Jesus who is particularly present in the receiver of mercy (Mt 25:40). Indeed, God returns mercy to mercy, and moreover merciful people invite others with their works of mercy to be merciful.
To be merciful means in the concrete to do compassionate acts, the works of mercy, that is, the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. Pope Francis invites us through the Year of Mercy: “It is my burning desire that, during this Jubilee, the Christian people may reflect on the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. It will be a way to reawaken our conscience, too often grown dull in the face of poverty. And let us enter more deeply into the heart of the Gospel where the poor have a special experience of God’s mercy. Jesus introduces us to these works of mercy in his preaching so that we can know whether or not we are living as his disciples. Let us rediscover these corporal works of mercy: to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, heal the sick, visit the imprisoned, and bury the dead. And let us not forget the spiritual works of mercy: to counsel the doubtful, instruct the ignorant, admonish sinners, comfort the afflicted, forgive offences, bear patiently those who do us ill, and pray for the living and the dead.†(Cf. CCC 2447).
The Jubilee Year is a “year of graceâ€(Lk 4:18-19) and a “year of mercy†in which like the fig in the parable of the fig tree (Lk 13:6-9), people are given another year to bear fruit – of love, mercy, and justice. The followers of Jesus the Merciful One are in the world to show the merciful face of God to the people around them. It is time to walk the talk!
May Mary the Mother of Mercy help us all obtain God’s mercy and be merciful!
(Published in O Clarim, Macau Catholic Weekly, February 2016)