Jesus Christ taught that man not only receives and experiences the mercy of God, but that he is also called to practice mercy towards others: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. The Church sees in these words a call to action, and she tries to practice mercy. All the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount indicate the way of conversion and of reform of life, but the one referring to those who are merciful is particularly eloquent in this regard. Man attains to the merciful love of God, His mercy, to the extent that he himself is interiorly transformed in the spirit of that love towards his neighbor. This authentically evangelical process is not just a spiritual transformation realized once and for all: it is a whole lifestyle, an essential and continuous characteristic of the Christian vocation... Even in the cases in which everything would seem to indicate that only one party is giving and offering, and the other only receiving and taking (for example, in the case of a physician giving treatment, a teacher teaching, parents supporting and bringing up their children, a benefactor helping the needy), in reality the one who gives is always also a beneficiary... In this sense Christ crucified is for us the loftiest model, inspiration and encouragement. When we base ourselves on this disquieting model, we are able with all humility to show mercy to others, knowing that Christ accepts it as if it were shown to Himself. On the basis of this model, we must also continually purify all our actions and all our intentions in which mercy is understood and practiced... True mercy is, so to speak, the most profound source of justice. If justice is in itself suitable for arbitration between people concerning the reciprocal distribution of objective goods in an equitable manner, love and only love (including that kindly love that we call mercy) is capable of restoring man to himself... Thus, mercy becomes an indispensable element for shaping mutual relationships between people, in a spirit of deepest respect for what is human, and in a spirit of mutual brotherhood. it is impossible to establish this bond between people, if they wish to regulate their mutual relationships solely according to the measure of justice... Consequently, merciful love is supremely indispensable between those who are closest to one another: between husbands and wives, between parents and children, between friends; and it is indispensable in education and in pastoral work... Forgiveness demonstrates the presence in the world of the love which is more powerful than sin... A world from which forgiveness was eliminated would be nothing but a world of cold unfeeling justice, in the name of which each person would claim his or her own rights vis-a-vis others; the various kinds of selfishness latent in man would transform life and human society into a system of oppression of the weak by the strong, or into an arena of permanent strife between one group and another... The consciousness of being trespassers against each other goes hand in hand with the call to fraternal solidarity... It is obvious that such a generous requirement of forgiveness does not cancel out the objective requirements of justice. Properly understood, justice constitutes, so to speak, the goal of forgiveness. In no passage of the Gospel message does forgiveness, or mercy as its source, mean indulgence towards evil, towards scandals, towards injury or insult. In any case, reparation for evil and scandal, compensation for injury, and satisfaction for insult are conditions for forgiveness... Forgiveness, in fact, shows that, over and above the process of compensation and truce which is specific to justice, love is necessary, so that man may affirm himself as man... This drawing from the wells of the Savior can be done only in the spirit of that poverty to which we are called by the words and example of the Lord: You received without pay, give without pay. Thus, in all the ways of the Churchs life and ministry-through the evangelical poverty of her ministers and stewards and of the whole people which bears witness to the mighty works of its Lord-the God who is rich in mercy has been made still more clearly manifest (DM 14 of 15).
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 20:02:44 +0000
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