Fr. Noel Connolly
This is Divine Mercy Sunday. Mercy has long been a neglected
theme in theology but is a key theme in Old and New Testaments. "Mercy is
the name for our God, and without mercy we are lost." Rules alone can make
us harsh judges and rules were certainly not Jesus’ major concern. Jesus loved according
to our need and not according to the amount of effort we put into being
virtuous. Witness the prodigal son and the elder brother.
We must remember Jesus’ context. He was born into a
Galilee trapped in debt. Most of the people he lived with were poor peasant
farmers living on extremely small blocks of land that were barely able to
support them and their families. Farming was always risky and then they were
cruelly exploited by the landowners who demanded an excessive amount of the
crop and by the Romans and the local ruler, Herod Antipas who taxed them to
build the cities of Tiberias and Sephoris. They were extremely poor and tried
to survive with some dignity and honour as many poor people still do today. A
drought or sickness could easily cause these farmers to lose their land and
then they were forced to become day-labourers and if that didn’t work beggars
or prostitutes. These were Jesus’ friends and acquaintances and that is why
they figure so frequently in the Gospels.
Much of their Jewish religion did not help because it
concerned the Temple which they would not have had the money to visit or purity
laws which they were too poor to keep. They often “sinned” and were strictly
speaking untouchable. Yet Jesus often dined with “sinners”, touched and was
touched by them. He doesn’t demand formal rites of repentance before they can
join him. He understands that those who lack everything are also being
condemned to live in shame and without even some honour and dignity. This does
not mean that commandments are unimportant, but Jesus understands that
spiritual progress takes time and right now they need acceptance, love and
confidence. Grace and mercy come before judgement in the Kingdom of God.
Jesus’ experience of God was a God of life, mercy and
healing not of worship and law. “I have come that you may have life and have it
to the full.” [Jn. 10:10] Impelled by the God of life, Jesus went to those whom
religion had forgotten, illness had marginalised and poverty dehumanised.
Jesus’ God was a God of Life, so a God not of the righteous but of the
suffering. Jesus loved according to need not according to effort, virtue or
achievement. He didn’t try to reform their religious life but to help them live
a healthier life, free from the power of evil and all that dehumanised them.
Sickness was common in Galilee in Jesus’ time. His
neighbours and friends suffered many of the diseases of the poor. They were
blind, paralysed, had skin diseases or were mentally ill. And as everyone was
living on the edge of survival, the sick were often abandoned by neighbours,
society and their religion and with no means to earn a living, reduced to
begging. Jesus saw them by the roadside and loved them. Abandoned by God and
humanity, stigmatised and excluded from community life, they were probably the
most marginalised sector of Galilee society. That is why Jesus loved them. His
highest concern was for the suffering and most unfortunate. He wanted to show
them that God was especially with those who were suffering and abandoned.
Jesus’ healings were the practical demonstration of
everything he preached. He not only healed the sick but restored them to
relationships, to their families and their community. Jesus was contagious with
health and life. The sick and abandoned no longer felt alone and he awakened
previously unrecognised energy in people. He revolutionised their understanding
of God and of themselves.
That is why Pope Francis insists that, “mercy is the greatest of the
virtues, since all the others revolve around it and, more than this, it makes
up for their deficiencies. This is particular to the superior virtue, and as
such it is proper to God to have mercy, through which his omnipotence is
manifested to the greatest degree”. Pope Francis uses the word “mercy” 32 times
in his exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel
and insists that what “the church needs most today is the ability to heal
wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I
see the church as a field hospital after battle.”
He wants us Christians to have warm, joyful, merciful hearts
capable of going out into the world, getting dirty and dialoguing with all
people especially those who are sick, poor and marginalised. His challenge to
us all is, “are we a church capable of warming and healing hearts”. Do we have
the compassion that Jesus was famous for? Are we individually and as a
community contagious with life?
