Low Sunday (Divine Mercy) 24 April 2022 Extending mercy
Christ has entrusted to the Church the work of forgiveness (Gospel).
Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven
them: and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained. (Jn 20,23) He would expect that the Church would be of
like mind to Himself, especially on the point of mercy.
If there is one thing we know about Our Lord it is that He has a merciful Heart. He wants to forgive sinners, to restore them to the life which was intended for them.
He seeks out the lost sheep (Lk 15,4-7); He spares the woman caught in adultery (Jn 8,1-11); He forgives the Good Thief (Lk 23,39-43) and all who were crucifying Him (Lk 23,34).
By His saving death He has reconciled humanity to God such that anyone who sincerely asks for mercy will receive it, and be admitted or re-admitted to the fold.
For various reasons not everyone asks for mercy, but still Christ continues to offer it.
For our purposes His mercy is infinite; at no point does it run out. We have to be sincere in our contrition, but with that one proviso we can go again and again to draw from His mercy.
We would like to have a bank account where we could do that,
but with Mercy we can.
God will do more than offer Mercy; He will exert some pressure on each person to seek it. Thus we can understand the things that ‘go wrong’ in our lives and in the world.
People ask, Why does God allow suffering? One reason is to force everyone to turn to Him in prayer asking for that mercy they now realize they need (cf ancient Israel who would come to realise why they were losing all their battles… if they would return to God they would win again.) Return, Israel, to the Lord your God… Your sins have been your downfall!... Say to Him: “Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously (Hos 14,12).
He wants His Church to be as lavish in mercy as He is Himself.
So we offer the Sacrament of Penance, which enables sinners to come back to life.
And our overall attitude needs to be merciful.
This may not always be easy. Sometimes we don’t want the sinner to repent; we would rather punish him, from a spirit of revenge.
Punishment has its place but it must always be understood as benefitting the offenders, not just emptying anger upon them.
It is very human to wish harm on our enemies, but not human enough – it is not the new humanity established in Christ which seeks the wellbeing of the offender.
He wants us to want the forgiveness of those who offend us. We want them to know the love of God and come to full union with Him
It is understandable if we don’t like someone who hurts us, but if that person changes then we can like him, and that change is what we seek.
Take St Paul, for instance. Early Christians might have wished him dead, but after his conversion he was a prize member of the Church.
God can see a lot further than we can. We must be careful wishing people dead!
We should not wish harm on others apart from salutary punishment which might help them to see the error of their ways. Even then we don’t rejoice in their misfortune, only sincerely wanting them to come to union with God.
When a sinner repents we rejoice cf there is more joy in heaven over one who repents (Lk 15, 7)
We rely too much on mercy ourselves to begrudge it to others. Instead, we ask mercy for all others, including those who begrudge mercy to others!
We drink from the chalice of Christ’s Blood, which is shed ‘for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins’…
It is difficult to act a certain way before we see the result, such as having to like sinners before they are likeable.
We call on Our Lord who died for us while we were still sinners. (Rom 5,8)
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