Blessed Are the Merciful

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

“Be merciful, therefore, even as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36).

Our Lord in the Gospel talks a lot about mercy. Our God is the God of mercy.

Pope St. John Paul II liked to refer a lot to this also. He had an Encyclical that he called Dives in misericordia–“Rich in Mercy.” It is a beautiful description of God.

We could ask ourselves occasionally, What am I rich in? It is a beautiful thing to be rich in mercy. We are told, “Be merciful…as your heavenly Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36).

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matt. 5:7).

Our Lady says that “mercy is from generation to generation on those who fear him” (Luke 1:50). It is a quality that we are asked to have in all situations of our Christian vocation and to put into practice.

Like the good Samaritan—when he saw the person injured along the road, he was moved with compassion, moved with mercy that put everything else, all other considerations, aside. It was a characteristic reaction of his at that particular moment (Luke 10:30–37).

God's mercy is infinite. It is greater than His justice. He showed His mercy on the Cross. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

He has given us the sacrament of mercy: Confession. God is “the Father of mercies.” we are told in Scripture (2 Cor. 1:3).

He sees in secret, and He rewards in secret (Matt. 6:4), and He forgives in secret. He wanted to reveal this mystery of His love.

John Paul II says that mercy is another word for love (cf. John Paul II, Encyclical, Dives in misericordia, November 30, 1980). A rather nice idea.

He liked to say that modern man needs mercy (Ibid.). Every human person needs a certain amount of mercy, so it is one of the principal themes of Our Lord's preaching, in fresh aspects all the time.

The good shepherd that goes in search of the lost sheep (Luke 15:3-7); the lost coin—the woman stops what she is doing and goes to look for that particular coin, until she has found it (Luke 15:8-10). St. Luke's Gospel is the Gospel of Mercy.`

In many ways, Christ reveals the content of the mercy of God, which He wants us to express in concrete situations.

There was a visiting priest in a coastal town in England saying Mass one day. A parishioner approached him, an elderly lady, and asked him to say ten Masses for the dead.

As he was a new priest, she explained that she lost her son in the Battle of Britain in the Second World War. Every year she got Masses said for the repose of his soul.

But also, she got ten Masses said for whoever was most responsible for his death, “because,” she said, “after the war, that person would have to live with his conscience. He would come to know the evils of Nazi ideology.”

She said, “He stood in need of my forgiveness, and of my son's forgiveness.”

So she got Masses said for the well-being of that fellow and of his family. She managed to move beyond righteous indignation, bitterness, or hatred.

It could have been there. She knew how to set aside feelings of vengeance—or exacting vengeance under the guise of justice.

She explained her concern for this stranger's salvation and for the well-being of his family. This is having a heart full of mercy.

A document of the Second Vatican Council, Ad Gentes, says, “For it is only by putting to death what is old that we are able to come to the newness of life.” Put to death the old reactions that are there inside us in the old person.

“The Gospel,” it says, “has truly been a leaven of liberty and progress…a leaven of unity and of peace” (Vatican II, Decree, Ad Gentes, December 7, 1965).

It helps us to move on, to put this virtue into practice in concrete ways. Our lives are meant to be guided by mercy and by love because “God is love” (1 John 4:8,16).

We also say that God is mercy. Christ then becomes a “model of mercy” towards others. He reaches out in all sorts of ways.

He doesn't just have a vague feeling of compassion for people, but He does things, does something about it. He puts it into practice.

When He saw the widow of Nain, He was approaching the tomb with a lot of people. He didn't just think, ‘look at this poor widow’ and go along His way.

He stopped what He was doing, disrupted the movement of where He was going, and He went over to this lady and to the funeral stretcher, and touched the stretcher.

He performed a great miracle (Luke 7:11-15), possibly seeing in this woman an image of His own Mother after His own death. He was moved with a particular mercy. He is the “model of mercy” towards others.

As we become more Christ-like, we need to become more merciful, let things pass, have a forgiving spirit, not to focus on our past hurts, or get too rigid about when people have stepped on our toes in various moments.

“The merciful,” we’re told, “shall obtain mercy” (Matt. 5:7). We are all in need of mercy. “As you give to others, so you shall receive yourself” (cf. Matt. 7:2), the Lord says.

That mercy of God signifies a special power of love that prevails over sin. God is absolute mercy. There is no sin that cannot be forgiven (cf. Mark 3:28).

The subtleties of God's love become manifest in His mercy. Another beautiful aspect.

It's a notion that pertains to God, but also to men. Mercy is a sign of man's closeness to God. He is able to have mercy and look upon other people with compassion.

There was this nun, a Consolata nun (Consolata Sister Leonella Sgorbati) who died in Mogadishu, ten or twelve years ago. She was shot by somebody. As she lay dying on the street, she said the words, “I forgive, I forgive.”

Now she is beatified. Great words with which to end our life: words of mercy. A great example. Pope Benedict spoke about her the following Sunday in Rome.

“Contrasted with God's justice, His mercy is shown to be more powerful, more profound” (cf. John Paul II, Dives in misericordia). It reaches further than justice.

Our Lord invites us to put that virtue into practice in concrete ways. Justice ends up meaning salvation won by God, and also His mercy. It excludes hatred towards others.

Fulton Sheen says, “Virtuous innocence never claims immunity from the guilt of others” (Fulton J. Sheen, Neighborliness). We realize that somehow we are also guilty. Somehow it's my fault.

Humility leads us to have mercy on other people. He says, “This is why an innocent woman was found at the foot of the Cross. The truest sympathy is found in those who, with the strength of love, come out of the sunshine into the gloom and dimness of others, to touch wounds tenderly, as though their own nerves throbbed with pain” (Ibid.).

Mercy leads us to get into the shoes of other people, a kind of sensitivity of where they came from, of what cross they may be carrying.

God's mercy is infinite. He has called us all to the eternal wedding feast. It's as though He has thrown a great party where we can receive infinite mercy and we are all invited.

“No human sin can erase the mercy of God, or prevent Him from unleashing all His triumphant power” (John Paul II, Encyclical, Veritatis Splendor, August 6, 1993). We just have to call upon Him.

“Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, the very ends of the earth for your domain” (Ps. 2:8).

“Sin itself makes the love of the Father even more radiant” (Ibid.) Because of man's sin, God sent His only begotten Son. He came to save us from sin.

St. Augustine, in talking about original sin, says, “O happy fault!”

In a theology class one time, somebody asked me a question, saying, “St. Augustine says these words, ‘O happy fault.’” This person used to sing the Exultet in a parish church on Holy Saturday night and knew Latin and studied Latin and came across the phrase, O felix culpa.

He couldn't quite figure it out. How come original sin is a happy fault with all the consequences that came from original sin?

St. Augustine says, “It's a happy fault because if man had not sinned, God would not have sent a Savior who died on the Cross shedding every ounce of His blood. Man would not have known how much God loves him.”

God gave proof of His love on the Cross; proof of the extent of His mercy.

“It's proper to God,” says St. Thomas Aquinas, “to exercise mercy. He manifests His omnipotence, particularly in this way” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II.II. Question 30).

Pope Francis said, “Thomas Aquinas’s words show that God's mercy, rather than a sign of weakness, is the mark of his omnipotence” (Pope Francis, Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, Misericordiae vultus, April 11, 2015).

The Father constantly extends that mercy to each one of us. How often have we benefited from the sacrament of mercy, the grace of God flowing into our soul, the blood of Christ washing away our sins?

Fulton Sheen likes to say that every time the priest raises his hands in confession, you have the absolution, “the blood of Christ dripping from his hands.”

“Without the shedding of blood,” we're told in Scripture, “there is no remission of sin” (Heb. 9:22).

Christ then is the “Incarnation of that mercy. … In Christ and through Christ,” says John Paul in that Encyclical, “God becomes especially visible in His mercy. There is emphasized in Him that attribute of His divinity using various concepts and terms.

“Christ confers on the whole of the Old Testament tradition about God's mercy a definitive meaning.

He is Divine Mercy Incarnate. “He doesn't just speak of it; He explains it by use of comparisons and parables, but above all, He personifies it. He Himself, in a certain sense. is mercy. … God becomes ‘visible’ in a particular way as the Father who is ‘rich in mercy’” (Eph. 2:4, John Paul II, Dives in misericordia).

Our Lord invites us continually to contemplate His mercy—the source of joy, serenity, peace. We know we can be forgiven.

We can always come back like the prodigal child. His father saw him a long way off. The father in that parable of the prodigal son is like a symbol of God the Father.

Every day he was looking out for his son, hoping that he might come back. One day he spots him on the horizon, yet a long way off.

It's an insight into the heart of that father, never giving up, hoping that that son was going to come, and he doesn't ask for a gun or a whip or something to teach him a lesson. He runs to him, embracing him (Luke 15:11-32).

“In the parables devoted to mercy, Our Lord reveals the nature of God as the nature of a father who never gives up. He's overcome all the evil with compassion and mercy.”

The role of the Church then is to manifest that mercy. “Mercy is the very foundation of the Church's life” (cf. John Paul II Dives in misericordia).

He says, “The Church ‘has an endless desire to show mercy’” (John Paul II, Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii gaudium).

“All of her pastoral activity should be caught up in the tenderness she makes present to believers”—tenderness through health care, education, concern, and the promotion of the dignity of the human person.

“The Church is,” as it were, “commissioned in a special way “to announce the mercy of God, to announce the beating heart of the Gospel, which must penetrate the mind and heart of every person.” Something very attractive.

Somebody was remembering last night a famous actor, Alec Guinness, I can't remember the name, who was playing the part of a priest in a movie and acting in that movie. It was being shot in northern France.

On the way home from one of the shootings he decided not to change out of his costume, so he just walked home dressed as a priest to a hotel wherever he was staying.

He was a bit shocked when a young kid ran up to him, took him by the hand, grasped his hand firmly, and did not let it go until he reached his destination. Just the fact of being dressed by a priest, this kid was supremely attracted.

He said, “That was what moved me to convert to the Catholic faith.” Something very special there. Little children detect that sign of God's love and of His mercy, the goodness that is there.

“Mercy is not opposed to justice but…expresses God's way of reaching out to the sinner, offering him a new chance to...begin again, convert, and believe” (cf. Pope Francis, Misericordiae vultus).

“Come back to me with all your heart. … Rend your hearts and not your garments” (Joel 2:12-13).

“A humble and contrite heart, O Lord, you will not spurn” (Ps. 51:17).

In this period of Lent, we find words of mercy frequently in the readings of Scripture. It's very good as we move through Lent to pay a lot of attention to all the different things that are placed before us by the Church.

They all have their purpose: the First Reading, the Second Reading, the Responsorial Psalm, the Entrance Antiphon. There are a lot of little gems there, Scriptural gems that all go to make up the whole picture of Lent and the whole message of Lent.

We are called to be witnesses of mercy, “called to gaze more attentively on this virtue so that we ourselves might become a more effective sign of God's action in our lives” (Pope Francis, Misericordiae vultus).

People might see that mercy in us, in the things we do, the things we say, the words, the actions, that somehow, maybe, change an environment or change a conversation, help people to be that little bit more loving. It’s something we have to grow in throughout our life.

Forgiveness is the loving refusal to demand compensation for past injuries or hurts, to wipe the slate clean. “You don't owe me anything.”

Any little grudges or pains that may be there deep inside us—we place those before the tabernacle. We don't keep a blacklist in some fold of our brain. Sometimes we can have an amazing memory, some little black dots.

We should try and remember that the people who may have hurt us in the course of our life don't even know that they've hurt us. Maybe God has used them as an instrument to shape us in various ways.

Our Lord said to St. Paul, “Why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4). He identified Himself with all the Christians that Paul was persecuting.

When we criticize or judge or compare, we're persecuting. And when we consider God's mercy, it leads us to remember all the times when God has forgiven us our sins.

All the greatest crimes that other people may commit against us are nothing compared to what God has forgiven us. We are the beneficiaries of His mercy.

Our Lord has also told us the parable where the steward who owed so much to his master begged for mercy and received mercy. The master forgave him of his debt.

But then he was owed something by somebody else and he went out and throttled that other person. He did not show any mercy to the other person, when he had been shown mercy. He's worthy of condemnation (Matt. 18:23-33).

Hurts, abuses, injustices can burrow actively into our memory. But poking at sores only prevents healing. You have to hand life’s hurts over to the Holy Spirit. Let Him take care of those things.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “The heart that offers itself to the Holy Spirit turns injury into compassion and purifies the memory in transforming the hurt into intercession” (Catechism, Point 2843).

That hurt can become a prayer. It can be a way of being sure, “Lord, I really want this favor that I'm asking for, or this grace for myself or for others.”

We learn to excuse rather than to accuse.

Lord, help me to be a more forgiving person, to learn the art of forgiving.

“It's a journey. The deeper the wound, the longer the journey. It’s only when we forgive that we're ready to be healed. Forgiving is the only way to be fair to ourselves” (Lewis Smedes, Forgiveness: Healing the Hurt We Don’t Deserve).

We have to be fair to others. There's no limitation to forgiveness. There's no injury so gross that cannot be forgiven.

Something that somebody said or did to us—if we ever say, I could never forgive that person, I'll always remember that thing or some little sentiment that may be there—God invites us to leave all these things at His feet.

The sea absorbs impurities, remaining undefiled. Something similar has to happen in our life. We absorb all the little negligences of others, perhaps misdemeanors that they don't realize they're committing. Absorb them and let them pass, and carry on.

Love keeps no record of wrongs, because “God is love” (1 John 4:8,16). Love is in the will, “like” is in the emotions or in the senses.

“Without memory there is no healing. Without forgiveness, there is no future” (Desmond Tutu).

Love doesn't let the wrongs of others pollute its flow of positive energy.

We look at the mercy of God and we see that God is full of breathtaking mercy. A beautiful adjective.

It shows us that understanding and forgiving are the most radical manifestations of love. We have to try and understand those who don't understand us, even those who don't want to understand.

“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). They don't realize this terrible crime.

We try to understand, but with no duplicate in the files. If we're to practice this type of forgiving, we need a certain amount of mortification to be understanding, to be willing at times to give in, because in practice, nothing really matters in this world.

Blame hurts, forgiveness cures. Our first reaction in different situations could be an emotional one. But we need to be careful with those first reactions.

Our Lord reminds us that we have to try and “forgive seventy times seven times” (Matt. 18:21). That means to have a forgiving approach to life, without limit. Unlimited pardon, always.

The various things that may give rise to little frictions—arguments, or trifling matters, or sharp replies, or disconcerting gestures—often may be the fruit of nothing else but just tiredness. This person is tired, or this person is this way or that way.

The least sign of friction—our charity can't begin to grow cold. We can't distance ourselves from others. This is where we invoke that virtue of mercy.

Following Our Lord means finding even in areas of tiny contradictions the pathway to holiness.

There's a reminder of all of this, the pathway to the Cross, which is the greatest manifestation of love.

“Mercy has the interior form of love. It's able to reach down to every prodigal child, to every human misery, every form of moral misery. … When that happens, the person doesn't feel humiliated, but feels found again, ‘restored to value’” (John Paul II, Dives in misericordia).

The Church talks a lot about the spiritual and corporal works of mercy (Catechism, Point 2447). We're invited to give high profile to these things, to foster them in our society, to practice them ourselves, to reach out to other people in all sorts of ways, so that they may see this quality of God's love manifested in each one of us.

Mercy leads to service. The first thing that Our Lady did after the Annunciation—she went to the hill country (Luke 1:39), got over the problems, left Joseph behind, immediately thought of her cousin.

St. John Chrysostom says, “He who assists the needy makes God his debtor” (St. John Chrysostom, Homily 15 on Matthew). Mercy is that other word for love.

“How very insistent,” said St. Josemaría in The Forge, “the apostle St. John was in preaching the mandatum novum, the new commandment that we should love one another! —I would fall on my knees, without putting on any act—but this is what my heart dictates—and ask you, for the love of God, to love one another, to help one another, to lend one another a hand, to know how to forgive one another. —And so, reject all pride, be compassionate, show charity; help each other with prayer and sincere friendship” (Josemaría Escrivá, The Forge, Point 454).

We can always grow in this virtue, going deeper.

He says in The Way, “Charity does not consist so much in ‘giving’ as in ‘understanding.’ Therefore, seek an excuse for your neighbor—there is always one to be found,—if it is your duty to judge” (J. Escriva, The Way, Point 463).

“Practice a cheerful charity,” he says in The Forge, “which is at once kindly and firm, human and at the same time supernatural. It should be an affectionate charity, knowing how to welcome everyone with a sincere and habitual smile, and how to understand the ideas and feelings of others. —In this way, with gentleness and strength, and without concessions in matters of personal morals or in doctrine, the charity of Christ—when it is being well lived—will give you a spirit of conquest. Each day you will have a greater desire to work for souls” (J. Escrivá, The Forge, Point 282).

As we move through Lent, we could ask Our Lady, the Mother of Mercy, to help us to grow in this particular virtue, to contemplate a bit more the mercy of Christ on the Cross. Very frequently we say, Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, hail, our life, our sweetness, and our hope.

Mary has the deepest knowledge of the mystery of God's mercy. “No one penetrated the profound mystery of the Incarnation like Our Lady” (Pope Francis, Misericordiae vultus).

She merits that mercy in her own life. “He has looked upon the lowliness of his handmaid. … His mercy is from generation to generation” (Luke 1:48,50).

Through her sacrifice, she shares in the revelation of God's mercy. “The motherhood of Mary in the order of grace lasts from the Annunciation until the end of time” (Vatican II, Lumen gentium, November 21, 1964).

John Paul says, “No one has received into his heart, as much as Mary did, that mystery, that truly divine dimension of the redemption effected on Calvary by means of the death of her Son, together with the sacrifice of her maternal heart, together with her definitive fiat.

“Mary, then, is the one who has the deepest knowledge of the mystery of God's mercy. She knows its price, she knows how great it is.

“In this sense, we call her the Mother of Mercy, Our Lady of Mercy, or Mother of Divine Mercy; in each one of these titles there is a deep theological meaning, for they express the special preparation of her soul, of her whole personality, so that she was able to perceive, through the complex events, first of Israel, then of every individual and of the whole of humanity, that mercy of which ‘from generation-to-generation’ (Luke 1:50) people become sharers according to the eternal design of the Most Holy Trinity” (John Paul II, Dives in misericordia).

“Mary experiences…the universality of God's love, which opens her heart and enables her to embrace the entire human race. So, Mary becomes the Mother of each and every one of us…, the radiant sign and inviting model of the moral life” (John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor).

Mother of Mercy, may you help us to contemplate during these days and hours a little more of that radiance of God's mercy that comes to us through you, so that we may grow in this great divine attribute. Amen.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, Saint Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

EW