Have mercy on me, O God,
in your goodness; in the greatness
of your compassion wipe out my offense.
Thoroughly wash me from my guilt and
of my sins cleans me...
A heart contrite and humbled,
O God, you will not spurn. - Psalm 51:3, 19b
The readings from today are directly about fasting. But even more so, they are about mercy. The readings today describe to us some acts of mercy: releasing those bound unjustly, untying the thongs of the yoke, setting free the oppressed, breaking every yoke, sharing bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless, clothing the naked, not turning your back on your own.
The Holy Father reflected on mercy vis-a-vis the priest. He stated, “true mercy takes care of the person, listens to him attentively, approaches his situation with respect and truth, and accompanies him on the path...” (en.zenit.org) While the Holy Father was, more or less, speaking about priests, I believe that this statement, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, also speaks to us about how to be merciful. Jesus speaks to us in the Gospels about mercy all the time. In particular, I think about the beatitudes and ‘Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:7).
In my personal experience, I have come to know what is mercy but throughout my life I have missed seeing it. Too often, I thought that mercy was a weak concept and discarded it. Then having experienced a conversion to the Catholic faith, I learned about mercy and what Jesus described as mercy but I still missing something. The Holy Father has clarified that for me and you and directly to our priests. In order to be merciful, we must care for others. Their needs must become our needs, or at least we must feel for them. Listening to people has become quite a difficult task today with the rise of technology that has degraded some people’s ability to talk and listen. But for the person who is in need of mercy, we need to recall what it means to listen attentively. Attentive listening is not just hearing words, but discerning the person’s choice of diction, tone, and posture in order to respond in a kind and loving manner with respect to the total aspect of the dialogue. The hardest part of mercy is approaching with respect and truth. Being merciful to someone who has wronged me is difficult. I try not to hold grudges or maintain aggression. The Holy Father tells me that it begins with respect and truth. To get to that point, I have to reflect and consider where that person is coming from.
I often tell my soldiers during difficult situations that people are not deliberately setting them up. The soldiers will get particularly loud in their complaints about mail. “Sarge, why don’t we have mail today? We didn’t get mail yesterday or the day before.” I tell my troops that the leadership does not sit in a room and think of ways to make them miserable and they reply that they know that. I keep reminding them that they do not because their attitudes do not reflect that. I have to respect their feelings but I have to bring truth to them. I may not always know the full situation of what is going on but I tell them what I do know. The first piece is that our mail is handled directly by people. I tell them first that people do make mistakes, but they get fixed eventually. The second is that people are machines and do not work as quickly as we have become accustomed to with our technological age.
The final piece of the Holy Father’s statement is that the merciful person accompanies the person being shown mercy. What does it mean to accompany them on the path? I think it means that when somebody is to be shown mercy, it is not a simple ‘you are forgiven, now go’ kind of action. I think that forgiveness is act but mercy is a behavior that embodies the whole person. Mercy is a way of life. However, I think the Holy Father is very wise in his statement to the priests because one of his points was that “Mercy means neither indulgence nor rigidity.” He clarified this by saying that mercy is not being lenient because that does not help the conscience of the person. Mercy is also not being rigid either because it is cold and lacks compassion. We need to reflect on how we are merciful in our own lives, because the time is always right to be merciful.
May God always show us mercy so that we can always know what mercy should look like. And in your great compassion, Lord, let me be merciful.
No comments:
Post a Comment