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Mercy
Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, a Catholic feast day that originated with Saint Faustina Kowalska. Saint Faustina was a Catholic nun belonging to the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy. She experienced visions Jesus Christ including a message about spreading the word about God’s mercy to the whole world. When Pope John Paul II canonized Sister Faustina, he made Divine Mercy Sunday part of the church’s liturgical calendar.
The scripture readings today are beautiful and offer a kind of “action plan” for our Christian journey. Visit the blog From the Pews in the Back to read my guest post A Divine Action Plan, a short reflections on the readings for Divine Mercy Sunday.
Since today is a day to celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday, I want to explore a bit more what “mercy” means. It’s one of those words that is fairly ordinary and unassuming, yet loaded with meaning. It is simple yet it is life-changing.
Mercy.
My first research destination: Merriam-Webster dictionary
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French merci, from Medieval Latin merced-, merces, from Latin, price paid, wages, from merc-, merx merchandise
1 a: compassion or forbearance shown especially to an offender or to one subject to one’s power; also: lenient or compassionate treatment b: imprisonment rather than death imposed as penalty for first-degree murder
2 a: a blessing that is an act of divine favor or compassion b: a fortunate circumstance
3: compassionate treatment of those in distress
My next stop: Theological Dictionary
Mercy. Readiness to help those in need. The Old Testament expresses God’s mercy chiefly by the verbs meaning to “be motherly” and to “bend down”. Throughout the Old Testament, assurances of God’s mercy, graciousness, and fidelity to his covenant outbalance all references … to the wrath of God; these qualities dominate the New Testament conception of God….
Human mercy, according to Scripture, is not measured by any display of feeling but by concrete proofs.
Which brings me to my final research destination: The Works of Mercy
The Corporal Works of Mercy
- feed the hungry
- shelter the homeless
- clothe the naked
- visit the sick and imprisoned
- bury the dead
- give alms to the poor
The Spiritual Works of Mercy
- instruct
- advise
- console
- comfort
- forgive
- bear wrongs patiently
What does mercy mean to you? Which word or phrase above resonates with you, draws you, calls for some kind of response from you?
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The definition that jumped out at me was the “death sentence moved to lifetime imprisonment.” I had no idea, and in a way it’s an apt metaphor for the soul separated from God, that through grace finds God and thus has its “death sentence” removed.
Mercy for me is first and foremost humbly asking God to have compassion for me and the stumbles I make everyday, and to help raise me up to my feet again. I also ask God to help me forgive myself. Mercy, I think, is a two-way street. If we can’t forgive ourselves, we have a broken relationship with God.
i think it is when you try to get past the wrongdoings done to you, when you try to take a good look at your transgressor, try to see that he/she is broken, human and wounded just as you are, try to empathize with him/her, and ask God for the healing of both you, and your transgressor (of course without “condoning” his/her transgressions in such a way that you inflict pain on others as well because of your condonement, or you let yourself be hurt because of the condonment).
i think it is trying to see God’s face in every wounded soul that you meet, and try to emulate God’s love for that soul, in the best way that you can. trying to alleviate him/her from any kind of suffering he/she is going through….like maybe accompanying a lonely old woman, walking her to the tram station and listening intently as she talks about herself and her life (something like that)….or helping out a jobless person find work by referring employment opportunities that you know…or smiling and sincerely encouraging a self-doubting choirmate who will be doing her first solo in church, even if you wish you had that part instead….or just hugging a person who really looks like she needs a good hug today….
i honestly do not always succeed in these. and sometimes i look back and see how much i have passed many opportunities to be more merciful just as God is merciful towards me (thanks to my overzealous emotions, self-centeredness and pride). but i do believe praying for people we’ve hurt or who have hurt us is still an act of mercy (as well as trying to make amends for offenses made). and hopefully, some day, given the opportunity, i will be better at being His agent of mercy.
To me, the concept of “mercy” connotes a process of transgression, forgiveness, repentence and finally reconciliation. Here is an example of when and how I believe “mercy” may manifest itself. A person sins. God, or another human being, forgives the person for his/her wrongdoing. The forgiven person is deeply moved by this compassionate act of forgiveness, repents in some shape or form and then is reconciled with the person he/she harmed – including God. This scenario can get alot more complicated and can trigger all sorts of other questions. But to me, forgiveness precedes mercy, or a merciful act. So FORGIVENESS is the key word that strikes me here. dee
To me, mercy is an act of unmerited kindness to someone. Does that make sense?
To be honest, I have had difficulty with this devotion–which is a shame because my Felician Sisters in Poland had an important role in promoting this devotion. Sister Faustyna’s order did not have a printing press, but our sisters did. In fact, Sister Faustyna and our foundress Mother Angela were beatified on the same day in 1993.
Help me to understand. Is this devotion one to encourage sinners who despair that their sin is too large for God to forgive? Is this one to say thank you to Jesus for taking our punishment for sins?
I guess I need a copy of “The Divine Mercy Devotion for Dummies.” (=^s
This passage, from a talk I heard this weekend, describes mercy to me.
“The suffering person is a child of God. No matter the source of her suffering – even when it is she who trespassed; even when she has trespassed against us – she remains a child of God.
When we receive hurting ones, we gather them to our hearts as Mary did and we embrace them as the wounded Christ. We cradle them with care and reverence in the lap of our compassion.
When we hold suffering ones in the lap of our compassion, we put aside our own agenda and receive them as they are. We let go of what we want to happen and what we think should happen. We put aside our judgments of them and allow them to be with us as they are. We do not cast aside our thoughts and feelings, but we do not allow our thoughts and feelings to dominate how we are with this hurting person.
When we hold the suffering person in our lap, we must also hold what has been injured and what has died in our own life and give it our full compassionate attention in order to show that compassion to another suffering soul.
Suffering can crush us, press us down, weigh heavily on our minds. The sufferings of others that we carry can be so large that we wonder if we can handle it. No one in their right mind would want more pain. But no one in their right heart would refuse it if it meant encouraging, strengthening and consoling another human being who is in pain.
Compassion require that we allow the lap of our life to hold the suffering of others. We can do this if we act from a center of deep love with ourselves: God’s presence within. We cannot offer compassion, and then decide to remain fully detached and spearated when it is painful or when have been trespassed against by the suffering one. We are called by God to receive the sufferings of others throughout our lives, and the pain of others *will* brush across our hearts if we are truly with them in their suffering. It is then that we must remember Mother Mary who prayed with compassion for us, even as she held her wounded son in her lap”.
At the end of the weekend, we prayed the ninth day of the Divine Mercy Novena. By chance, there happened to be a small Pieta in the room, cracked and stained by damp dust, which I had cleaned many times and which someone had recently moved to a shelf. I could barely see it behind the other objects on the shelf. I kept watch over Mary’s face as we sang “For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world” over and over again.
I realize now that we had been speaking of was mercy, even though we had not used that word.
Jean
Oh!
There’re only SIX each corporal and spritual works of Mercy!
THAT”S WHY I CAN NEVER REMEMBER ALL EIGHT!!!!
Thank you, I can quit racking my brain now.