Divine Mercy Sunday, 2023
Mercy Hurts.
Perhaps that is why our society really hates it.
Our world is one which speaks often about tolerance, but almost never about forgiveness.
Any choice is justifiable, we are told, until it becomes something which is popularly despised, and then the immediate new attitude is one of condemnation and hatred.
A celebrity is beloved one day, and cast off the next. A politician is put up as the savior of society, until something comes out about their past which topples them.
There is, actually, a valuable lesson to be learned from this kind of fickle favor: We must never put our faith in human authority or popular figures, but in the Eternal One Who never fails us. This is because no matter who the human person, whether a public figure or a next door neighbor, a spouse or a parent, they will fail us. We all will fail.
Are we so surprised and unfamiliar with human failure and sin? Is it really so far from us? We have all been forgiven much, both by God, and by others in our lives, and yet we so often forget that when someone fails us.
The voices of the world cry out that there is a limit to human charity, there has to be, and we respond that, in a way, they are right, because as one author wrote: …that is the real difference between human charity and Christian charity. For it seems that human charity only pardons the sins that the world doesn't really think are sinful. It only forgives criminals when they commit what it doesn't regard as crimes, but rather as conventions. The world forgives only when it is broadly accepted that there isn't anything to be forgiven.[1]
The Christian is called to be different. While the weak and insufficient charity of the world allows some things and some people to remain unforgivable, as that same author wrote: As Christians, we have to say the word that will save them from hell. We alone are left to deliver them from despair when human charity deserts them. Others may go on their own primrose path, pardoning all their favorite vices and being generous to their fashionable crimes. And leave us with the men who commit the mean and revolting and real crimes…[2]
Now, while the Christian is called to be reckless in mercy, just as God is, it is always important when discussing this topic to make clear that mercy does not mean naivety. Jesus wants us to be forgiving, not enabling. He wants us to believe that others can grow, change, and become better, but this does not mean that a person must be unchecked, or that there aren’t consequences to actions. If someone has been abusive, or manipulative, or dishonest, we are called to forgive them, but not to allow them to continue in our lives in the same destructive manner. It is necessary to mention this because we cannot allow God’s Mercy to be used as a weapon to imprison someone in a dangerous or toxic situation.
In a very special way, this Divine Mercy is particularly real for us in the Confessional. As Jesus makes clear in the Gospel today, the Lord gave authority for the forgiveness of sins to His first priests, and all those who would follow them, not as some power to use for control, but as yet another way of reflecting His Heart.
God wants to free us! He wants to take our burdens, to make us new again! We must learn from the Easter Resurrection that God is in the business of new life!
Jesus is waiting in those confessionals in the person of the Priest, hoping that you will come and let Him free you.
As the Lord tells us, it is the measure which is handed out to us that will be the measure we are judged against. Do we live like forgiven people? Are the graces of the confessional bearing fruit in our lives? Are we gentler people, are we slower to anger, are we more willing to assist another to grow?
In short: Do we forgive like Jesus? Are we wounded by the strength of our love for others? If we cannot answer yes to these questions, then perhaps we need to make frequent confession a greater part of our life. It is not merely for those times when we are at rock bottom. The graces of this Sacrament give us the strength to grow in holiness, and to bleed mercy, just like Jesus did on the Cross.
"O Blood and water that gushed forth from the heart of Jesus,
as a fount of mercy for us, I trust in You”
[1] and [2] Paraphrased selections from The Chief Mourner of Marne by G.K. Chesterton.
Preached April 16th, 2023 at St. Alexander’s, Morrisonville and St. James’, Cadyville
