Divine Mercy Sunday Reflection

by Fr John Allen Green OFM · April 28, 2019

The heart pounding threat of retribution; “just you wait until your father gets home!” When mom use the term ‘father’ instead of ‘dad’, we knew we were in for the high jump, ‘father’ was the wielder the belt and Mercy was not the name of the game. Rather than the image of the blindfolded lady holding the scales of justice with sword in hand, my own particular image of justice, of retribution, is always connected to father and that fearful, wide, black, leather belt. Mom, on the other hand, was always the one to reflect Mercy and to show compassion; always there with us when you are sick or hurt and when our hearts had been shattered.

This may not be the blueprint for all families, but it certainly fits the description of our family and many of those that I know; father represents justice while mom represents Mercy. Why do we cling so tenaciously to this image of an embodied male God while at the same time acknowledging that God is pure spirit?

The church is our mother and we so desperately need the compassion of a mother. Perhaps this lack of a motherly God image is the reason for our well-developed muscle of justice while Mercy hangs limply from the socket.

There is something about justice and Mercy that tear each other apart. Justice and Mercy can never be equal in those scales of lady justice. Mercy and justice are in juxtaposition to each other; you cannot have one sitting at the same table with the other. Justice and retribution keep the barbarians from the city gates and keep us safe in our beds at night. As long as we have bigger guns and higher walls, we feel secure.

Within each one of us there is an inbuilt sense of a moral code; a sense of justice and an indignation at what we see to be injustice. The closer this sensed injustice touches us personally, the more intense that sense of indignation grows. Something has been taken from us and we see it as only fairness that our loss be made good, that equity is restored and punishment inflicted on our tormentor. We crave justice, we demand retribution. And so God, the punitive avenger is born in our own image.

A Hidden Darkness

This is the hidden darkness within our hearts that secretly rejoices at the pain and suffering of someone we perceive to have slighted us, hurt us or betrayed us. Justice demands retribution, vengeance….satisfaction; nothing else will satisfy our moral sense of justice.

As our communities and societies become larger, we moved ever closer to this vision of a punitive God, the Father of Justice. This was a way of control which also governed human co-operation and financial manipulation. This appears to have become our default setting, yet the gospel points to another way and Jesus ties this other way to our own redemption.

Sadly, it is this very sense of my moral code of justice, my demand for revenge, vengeance, retribution, compensation that leads me to doubt my own forgiveness and that poisons my belief in forgiveness for myself; the untying of the bonds that hold me in ‘bondage’.

Without this forgiveness for myself and for others, I am unable to be free; and because Love needs freedom, unforgiveness blocks me from experiencing Love; blocks me from experiencing God; blocks me from being authentic to my purpose.

In his discourse on Mercy, RICH IN MERCY, St Pope John Paul II, spoke of this problem. The present-day mentality, more perhaps than that of people in the past, seems opposed to a God of Mercy and in fact tends to exclude from life and to remove from the human heart the very idea of Mercy.

‘Mercy’ Causes Uneasiness

The word and the concept of “Mercy” seem to cause uneasiness in humanity, who, thanks to the enormous development of science and technology never before known in history, has become the master of the earth and has subdued and dominated it.

This dominion over the earth, sometimes understood in a one-sided and superficial way, seems to leave no room for Mercy. If we do accept that we have been made by God who is good; made by Love, and that the purpose of our lives must be to Love and to be Loved, our hearts will be for ever closed in on ourselves, empty and avoid of joy.

Love cannot exist without forgiveness as much as it cannot exist in indifference, because un-forgiveness is always about me and the past; is always about my precious; my opinions; my honour; my hurt; my loss and my needs. While Love is always about the other; Love needs the good of the other; Love must be in the present.

This is the great doubt and the great need; the tension between Justice and Mercy; the tension between our great need for forgiveness and our desire for retribution. Without finding that possibility of forgiveness in my own heart, I have blocked myself from Mercy. Without foregoing my own desire for compensation, for retribution, I have closed the door to the great gift of Mercy that Love offers us.

Whoever approaches the Fountain of Life on this day will be granted complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. Do not doubt that sins can be forgiven without retribution. Today’s feast of doubt and Mercy is a declaration to us, a declaration and a promise made by Jesus, the Christ; This Feast emerged from the very depths of My Mercy, and it is confirmed in the vast depths of my tender mercies. Do not doubt that this is my way, for I died with forgiveness and Mercy in my heart and on my lips even for those who crucified me.

INTERCESSIONS

Risen Jesus, you are tender and merciful. You comfort us in our pain and are with us in our sorrow. You reveal to us the Mercy of God, teaching us that those who are merciful will themselves obtain Mercy. Draw near to us as we pray for our suffering world. The cry of the hungry is heard in our world. People lack food and the means to provide for their families: