Isbn ebook 978-1-941709-16-0
EDITORIAL
Father Peter John Cameron, O.P.
WITH JOY WE ENTER INTO the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, which Pope Francis calls “a special time for the Church, a time when the 11itness of believers might grow stronger and more effective” (Misericordiae Vultus 3).
The first sign of civilization
It is reported that a student once asked the famous anthropologist Margaret Mead, “What is the earliest sign of civilization in any given culture?” According to the story, the questioner likely expected Mead to say a tool, a weapon, a piece of pottery, an artifact of domestic life, etc.
Instead, the anthropologist answered: “A healed femur” (the big leg bone between the hip and the knee). A healed femur shows that someone took care of the injured person. Someone else had to step in to carry out the work of hunting and gathering until the individual’s fractured leg healed. For Mead, the first sign of civilization was the evidence of compassion.
Pope Francis has called for the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy to make that primordial sign of civilization plain and far-reaching in the world again.
How to use this book
The pope has proclaimed a Jubilee of Mercy because, as he writes, “at times we are called to gaze even more attentively on mercy so that we may become a more effective sign of the Father’s action in our lives” (MV 3) To assist with that attentive gaze, Magnificat is pleased to offer this Year of Mercy Companion.
You will find within something for each day of the Jubilee Year, and much more as well. Sundays are set apart by the forty-nine original poems written for this book. On Mondays you will read an array of meditations on the theme of divine mercy. Tuesdays bring an encounter with the saints of mercy. Wednesdays offer thoughtful catechetical essays addressing the most salient points of the theology of mercy. Thursdays are dedicated to witnesses of mercy, whether they be found in history, the present day, or literature. Fridays reflect on the notion of mercy as it appears in Sacred Scripture. And Saturdays stand dedicated to prayerful devotions of many sorts.
Also, in the “Red Line Section” of the book you will discover reference materials for the Jubilee Year that you will want to return to again and again: essays on the meaning of a Jubilee Year, the conditions for gaining the Jubilee Year indulgence, the Jubilee Calendar of Events, a Little Office of Divine Mercy, a Year of Mercy Penance Service, and more.
Merciful like the Father
Pope Francis tells us that this special Holy Year is a time “to bear the weaknesses and struggles of our brothers and sisters” (MV 10), an occasion to “open our eyes and see the misery of the world, the wounds of our brothers and sisters” (MV 15).
We can do so when we recall how much God looked upon our own wounds and misery with untellable, unlimited love and mercy Let us pray for the grace to be effective signs of the Father’s mercy to others, with the assurance given by Doctor of the Church Saint Francis de Sales:
Then, “touched by [God’s] compassion, we also can become compassionate towards others” (MV 14).
Table of Contents
Editorial
DECEMBER 8: MEDITATION
DECEMBER 9: CATECHESIS
DECEMBER 10: WITNESS
DECEMBER 11: SCRIPTURE
DECEMBER 12: DEVOTION
DECEMBER 13: POETRY
DECEMBER 14: MEDITATION
DECEMBER 15: SAINTS
DECEMBER 16: CATECHESIS
DECEMBER 17: WITNESS
DECEMBER 18: SCRIPTURE
DECEMBER 19: DEVOTION
DECEMBER 20: POETRY
DECEMBER 21: MEDITATION
DECEMBER 22: SAINTS
DECEMBER 23: CATECHESIS
DECEMBER 24: WITNESS
DECEMBER 25: POETRY
DECEMBER 26: DEVOTION
DECEMBER 27: POETRY
DECEMBER 28: MEDITATION
DECEMBER 29: SAINTS
DECEMBER 30: CATECHESIS
DECEMBER 31: WITNESS
JANUARY 1: SCRIPTURE
JANUARY 2: DEVOTION
JANUARY 3: POETRY
JANUARY 4: MEDITATION
JANUARY 5: SAINTS
JANUARY 6: CATECHESIS
JANUARY 7: WITNESS
JANUARY 8: SCRIPTURE
JANUARY 9: DEVOTION
JANUARY 10: POETRY
JANUARY 11: MEDITATION
JANUARY 12: SAINTS
JANUARY 13: CATECHESIS
JANUARY 14: WITNESS
JANUARY 15: SCRIPTURE
JANUARY 16: DEVOTION
JANUARY 17: POETRY
JANUARY 18: MEDITATION
JANUARY 19: SAINTS
JANUARY 20: CATECHESIS
JANUARY 21: WITNESS
JANUARY 22: SCRIPTURE
JANUARY 23: DEVOTION
JANUARY 24: POETRY
JANUARY 25: MEDITATION
JANUARY 26: SAINTS
JANUARY 27: CATECHESIS
JANUARY 28: WITNESS
JANUARY 29: SCRIPTURE
JANUARY 30: DEVOTION
JANUARY 31: POETRY
FEBRUARY 1: MEDITATION
FEBRUARY 2: SAINTS
FEBRUARY 3: CATECHESIS
FEBRUARY 4: WITNESS
FEBRUARY 5: SCRIPTURE
FEBRUARY 6: DEVOTION
FEBRUARY 7: POETRY
FEBRUARY 8: MEDITATION
FEBRUARY 9: SAINTS
FEBRUARY 10: CATECHESIS
FEBRUARY 11: WITNESS
FEBRUARY 12: SCRIPTURE
FEBRUARY 13: DEVOTION
FEBRUARY 13: DEVOTION
FEBRUARY 14: POETRY
FEBRUARY 15: MEDITATION
FEBRUARY 16: SAINTS
FEBRUARY 17: CATECHESIS
FEBRUARY 18: WITNESS
FEBRUARY 19: SCRIPTURE
FEBRUARY 20: DEVOTION
FEBRUARY 21: POETRY
FEBRUARY 22: MEDITATION
FEBRUARY 23: SAINTS
FEBRUARY 24: CATECHESIS
FEBRUARY 25: WITNESS
FEBRUARY 26: SCRIPTURE
FEBRUARY 27: DEVOTION
FEBRUARY 28: POETRY
FEBRUARY 29: MEDITATION
MARCH 1: SAINTS
MARCH 2: CATECHESIS
MARCH 3: WITNESS
MARCH 4: SCRIPTURE
MARCH 5: DEVOTION
MARCH 6: POETRY
MARCH 7: MEDITATION
MARCH 8: SAINTS
MARCH 9: CATECHESIS
MARCH 10: WITNESS
MARCH 11: SCRIPTURE
MARCH 12: DEVOTION
MARCH 13: POETRY
MARCH 14: MEDITATION
MARCH 15: SAINTS
MARCH 16: CATECHESIS
MARCH 17: WITNESS
MARCH 18: SCRIPTURE
MARCH 19: DEVOTION
MARCH 20: POETRY
MARCH 21: MEDITATION
MARCH 22: SAINTS
MARCH 23: CATECHESIS
MARCH 24: WITNESS
MARCH 25: SCRIPTURE
MARCH 26: DEVOTION
MARCH 27: POETRY
MARCH 28: MEDITATION
MARCH 29: SAINTS
MARCH 30: CATECHESIS
MARCH 31: WITNESS
APRIL 1: SCRIPTURE
APRIL 2: DEVOTION
APRIL 3: POETRY
APRIL 4: MEDITATION
APRIL 5: SAINTS
APRIL 6: CATECHESIS
APRIL 7: WITNESS
APRIL 8: SCRIPTURE
APRIL 9: DEVOTION
APRIL 10: POETRY
APRIL 11: MEDITATION
APRIL 12: SAINTS
APRIL 13: CATECHESIS
APRIL 14: WITNESS
APRIL 15: SCRIPTURE
APRIL 16: DEVOTION
APRIL 17: POETRY
APRIL 18: MEDITATION
APRIL 19: SAINTS
APRIL 20: CATECHESIS
APRIL 21: WITNESS
APRIL 22: SCRIPTURE
APRIL 23: DEVOTION
APRIL 24: POETRY
APRIL 25: MEDITATION
APRIL 26: SAINTS
APRIL 27: CATECHESIS
APRIL 28: WITNESS
APRIL 29: SCRIPTURE
APRIL 30: DEVOTION
MAY 1: POETRY
MAY 2: MEDITATION
MAY 3: SAINTS
MAY 4: CATECHESIS
MAY 5: DEVOTION
MAY 6: SCRIPTURE
MAY 7: DEVOTION
MAY 8: POETRY
MAY 9: MEDITATION
MAY 10: SAINTS
MAY 11: CATECHESIS
MAY 12: WITNESS
MAY 13: SCRIPTURE
MAY 14: DEVOTION
MAY 15: POETRY
MAY 16: MEDITATION
MAY 17: SAINTS
MAY 18: CATECHESIS
MAY 19: WITNESS
MAY 20: SCRIPTURE
MAY 21: DEVOTION
MAY 22: POETRY
MAY 23: MEDITATION
MAY 24: SAINTS
MAY 25: CATECHESIS
MAY 26: WITNESS
MAY 27: SCRIPTURE
MAY 28: DEVOTION
MAY 29: POETRY
MAY 30: MEDITATION
MAY 31: SAINTS
JUNE 1: CATECHESIS
JUNE 2: WITNESS
JUNE 3: SCRIPTURE
JUNE 4: DEVOTION
JUNE 5: POETRY
JUNE 6: MEDITATION
JUNE 7: SAINTS
JUNE 8: CATECHESIS
JUNE 9: WITNESS
JUNE 10: SCRIPTURE
JUNE 11: DEVOTION
JUNE 12: POETRY
JUNE 13: MEDITATION
JUNE 14: SAINTS
JUNE 15: CATECHESIS
JUNE 16: WITNESS
JUNE 17: SCRIPTURE
JUNE 18: DEVOTION
JUNE 19: POETRY
JUNE 20: MEDITATION
JUNE 21: SAINTS
JUNE 22: CATECHESIS
JUNE 23: WITNESS
JUNE 24: SCRIPTURE
JUNE 25: DEVOTION
JUNE 26: POETRY
JUNE 27: MEDITATION
JUNE 28: SAINTS
JUNE 29: CATECHESIS
JUNE 30: WITNESS
JULY 1: SCRIPTURE
JULY 2: DEVOTION
JULY 3: POETRY
JULY 4: MEDITATION
JULY 5: SAINTS
JULY 6: CATECHESIS
JULY 7: WITNESS
JULY 8: SCRIPTURE
JULY 9: DEVOTION
JULY 10: POETRY
JULY 11: MEDITATION
JULY 12: SAINTS
JULY 13: CATECHESIS
JULY 14: WITNESS
JULY 15: SCRIPTURE
JULY 16: DEVOTION
JULY 17: POETRY
JULY 18: MEDITATION
JULY 19: SAINTS
JULY 20: CATECHESIS
JULY 21: WITNESS
JULY 22: SCRIPTURE
JULY 23: DEVOTION
JULY 24: POETRY
JULY 25: MEDITATION
JULY 26: SAINTS
JULY 27: CATECHESIS
JULY 28: WITNESS
JULY 29: SCRIPTURE
JULY 30: DEVOTION
JULY 31: POETRY
AUGUST 1: MEDITATION
AUGUST 2: SAINTS
AUGUST 3: CATECHESIS
AUGUST 4: WITNESS
AUGUST 5: SCRIPTURE
AUGUST 6: DEVOTION
AUGUST 7: POETRY
AUGUST 8: MEDITATION
AUGUST 9: SAINTS
AUGUST 10: CATECHESIS
AUGUST 11: WITNESS
AUGUST 12: SCRIPTURE
AUGUST 13: DEVOTION
AUGUST 14: POETRY
AUGUST 15: MEDITATION
AUGUST 16: SAINTS
AUGUST 17: CATECHESIS
AUGUST 18: WITNESS
AUGUST 19: SCRIPTURE
August 20: DEVOTION
AUGUST 21: POETRY
AUGUST 22: MEDITATION
AUGUST 23: SAINTS
AUGUST 24: CATECHESIS
AUGUST 25: WITNESS
AUGUST 26: SCRIPTURE
AUGUST 27: DEVOTION
AUGUST 28: POETRY
AUGUST 29: MEDITATION
AUGUST 30: SAINTS
AUGUST 31: CATECHESIS
SEPTEMBER 1: WITNESS
SEPTEMBER 2: SCRIPTURE
SEPTEMBER 3: DEVOTION
SEPTEMBER 4: POETRY
SEPTEMBER 5: MEDITATION
SEPTEMBER 6: SAINTS
SEPTEMBER 7: CATECHESIS
SEPTEMBER 8: WITNESS
SEPTEMBER 9: SCRIPTURE
SEPTEMBER 10: DEVOTION
SEPTEMBER 11: POETRY
SEPTEMBER 12: MEDITATION
SEPTEMBER 13: SAINTS
SEPTEMBER 14: CATECHESIS
SEPTEMBER 15: WITNESS
SEPTEMBER 16: SCRIPTURE
SEPTEMBER 17: DEVOTION
SEPTEMBER 18: POETRY
SEPTEMBER 19: MEDITATION
SEPTEMBER 20: SAINTS
SEPTEMBER 21: CATECHESIS
SEPTEMBER 22: WITNESS
SEPTEMBER 23: SCRIPTURE
SEPTEMBER 24: DEVOTION
SEPTEMBER 25: POETRY
SEPTEMBER 26: MEDITATION
SEPTEMBER 27: SAINTS
SEPTEMBER 28: CATECHESIS
SEPTEMBER 29: WITNESS
SEPTEMBER 30: SCRIPTURE
OCTOBER 1: DEVOTION
OCTOBER 2: POETRY
OCTOBER 3: MEDITATION
OCTOBER 4: SAINTS
OCTOBER 5: CATECHESIS
OCTOBER 6: WITNESS
OCTOBER 7: SCRIPTURE
OCTOBER 8: DEVOTION
OCTOBER 9: POETRY
OCTOBER 10: MEDITATION
OCTOBER 11: SAINTS
OCTOBER 12: CATECHESIS
OCTOBER 13: WITNESS
OCTOBER 14: SCRIPTURE
OCTOBER 15: DEVOTION
OCTOBER 16: POETRY
OCTOBER 17: MEDITATION
OCTOBER 18: SAINTS
OCTOBER 19: CATECHESIS
OCTOBER 20: WITNESS
OCTOBER 21: SCRIPTURE
OCTOBER 22: DEVOTION
OCTOBER 23: POETRY
OCTOBER 24: MEDITATION
OCTOBER 25: SAINTS
OCTOBER 26: CATECHESIS
OCTOBER 27: WITNESS
OCTOBER 28: SCRIPTURE
OCTOBER 29: DEVOTION
OCTOBER 30: POETRY
OCTOBER 31: MEDITATION
NOVEMBER 1: SAINTS
NOVEMBER 2: CATECHESIS
WITNESS 2: NOVEMBER 3
NOVEMBER 4: SCRIPTURE
NOVEMBER 5: DEVOTION
NOVEMBER 6: POETRY
NOVEMBER 7: MEDITATION
NOVEMBER 8: SAINTS
NOVEMBER 9: CATECHESIS
NOVEMBER 10: WITNESS
NOVEMBER 11: NOVENA
NOVEMBER 12: NOVENA
NOVEMBER 13: NOVENA
NOVEMBER 14: NOVENA
NOVEMBER 15: NOVENA
NOVEMBER 16: NOVENA
NOVEMBER 17: NOVENA
NOVEMBER 18: NOVENA
NOVEMBER 19: NOVENA
NOVEMBER 20: DEVOTION
Brief Biographies of Contributors
Prayer of Pope Francis for the Jubilee
Biographies of Authors of Meditations and Prayers
Acknowledgments
The Magnificat® Year of Mercy Companion
JESUS CHRIST IS THE FACE of the Father’s mercy. These words might well sum up the mystery of the Christian faith…. We need constantly to contemplate the mystery of mercy. It is a wellspring of joy, serenity, and peace. Our salvation depends on it. Mercy: the word reveals the very mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. Mercy: the ultimate and supreme act by which God comes to meet us. Mercy: the fundamental law that dwells in the heart of every person who looks sincerely into the eyes of his brothers and sisters on the path of life. Mercy: the bridge that connects God and man, opening our hearts to the hope of being loved forever despite our sinfulness.
At times we are called to gaze even more attentively on mercy so that we may become a more effective sign of the Father’s action in our lives. For this reason I have proclaimed an Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy as a special time for the Church, a time when the witness of believers might grow stronger and more effective….
With our eyes fixed on Jesus and his merciful gaze, we experience the love of the Most Holy Trinity.
– Misericordiae Vultus 1-3, 8
What Is Mercy?
MERCY IS THE FORM LOVE TAKES when it encounters misery. It is first of all a form of love because it wants what is good for the one who is loved. Keeping this in mind can keep us from some subtle and corrupting mistakes. For example, Saint Thomas Aquinas points out that mercy is a Godlike virtue because it involves the strong showing pity to the weak, and from this truth someone may delight in showing “mercy” precisely because it allows him to highlight his own superiority on both a spiritual and a material level. But this isn’t really mercy. It’s just pride dressing up as mercy. It’s the sort of pride that Saint Francis de Sales said would make the poor “hate you for the very bread you give them.”
Mercy is not condescension. Instead it is a kind of restoration. Imagine someone of royal lineage who has recently fallen upon hard times. He is wandering and lost and perhaps suffering from a form of amnesia. He cannot tell you his name. If you encounter this person, you feel compelled to restore something lost. You don’t love the fact that he doesn’t have access to who he really is. You love what he is and who he is, and so you strive to restore who he really is.
Or imagine a young person lacking judgment, experience, and knowledge. If you love this young person, you don’t love her poverty in these matters. You love her and what she could be with the proper instruction and guidance, and therefore you want to free her from her present limitations. This is the gift of mercy, and it is rooted in profound respect.
This way of putting things makes a difference, because one could place the stress elsewhere. One could, for example, stress the fact that mercy is contrasted with justice. It is an undeserved gift, and hence to receive it marks one forever as one of the “undeserving poor.” To receive mercy would, in that case, also be to receive a form of contempt.
God knows us as he intends us to be; his sons, his daughters, his friends. He knows that he has fitted us for himself and that no other destiny for us will do. When he knows us as sinners and as unable to secure our own deliverance from our sins, he knows us as needing his mercy. But this mercy is, in a way, called for, not by reason of our own merits, but because of his own fatherly affection for us and because he sees the change in us that his father’s love will produce. His mercy reflects God’s true judgment on us as being not his “undeserving poor” but his own beloved children.
– Father John Dominic Corbett, O.P.
ADAM AND EVE HAVE EATEN of the fruit of the forbidden tree. At first they felt as if they had been raised to deity, but that was mere intoxication, a drunken illusion. They seal their guilt with an act of lust, and fall into a troubled sleep. When they awake they are truly naked:
“He covered,” says Milton, “but his robe / Uncovered more.”
All seems lost. The Son has judged them and pronounced sentence, yet his first act after that was one of mercy. He clothed their bodies with skins, and their souls with the stirrings of penitence. Says Adam to Eve:
Words of wisdom for us all.
– Anthony Esolen
IT BEGINS BY SAYING, “This is your lucky day.” Often I receive an email informing me that millions of dollars are being held in my name in a foreign country. To receive the treasure I need simply contact the sender with my personal financial information. Most people realize this is a scam and delete the message. However, I once met a man who fell for it and was nearly ruined.
In the Letter to the Ephesians, Paul reflects on how choices made out of greed or selfishness can lead to our ruin. Sin deadens our good judgment and leaves us spiritually poor. But then Paul offers the message: every day can be our lucky day. In reminding us that God is rich in mercy (cf. Eph 2:4), Paul says that no matter how bankrupt we may feel because of our sins, God continues to invest mercy into our lives.
We’ve all trusted a voice that has led us astray. We’ve made a choice that seemed convenient. It may have not lead to our ruin, but it caused pain or hurt. The guilt that follows can kill our spirit. But our spirit can be renewed when we trust the voice of faith that assures us—every day is a lucky day for those who trust in his mercy.
– Monsignor Gregory E. S. Malovetz
A Scriptural Litany of Mercy
Throughout the ages, almighty God has manifested his unfailing mercy.
Lord, have mercy on us.
O infinite, divine mercy, you are:
Beauteous Creation brought forth from the abyss of nothingness.
The breath that turned muddy clay into a living human being.
The leather garments that clothed sinful man and woman.
The ark that saved Noah from the cataclysm of the flood.
The rainbow—sign of your covenant with the earth.
The halt put to building the haughty Tower of Babel.
The everlasting covenant made with Abraham.
The angel who stayed Abraham’s knife above his son Isaac.
The stairway shown to Jacob in a dream.
The forgiveness Joseph offered to his treacherous brothers.
The hope of liberation promised in the burning bush.
The miraculous passageway through the parted Red Sea.
The authority of Moses and the attained Promised Land.
The manna in the wilderness for those facing famine.
Flowing water to drink from a rock in the desert.
The gift of the tablets bearing the Ten Commandments.
The Ark of the Covenant.
The certainty that filled Joshua to serve God alone.
The strength of Samson.
The tenderness that moved Ruth to stay with Naomi.
The voice that beckoned Samuel in the nighttime.
The kingly anointing of Saul.
David’s defeat of the Philistine Goliath.
The Temple built by Solomon.
– Father Peter John Cameron, O.P.
The Question (Lk 3:10-18)
“Might you be the Christ?”
We ask without knowing
to the picture
on the wall,
the open lily
in the pot,
the bourbon
on the shelf,
the stranger
down the hall.
We ask it
of the verse
as it focuses our cry:
Might these be the words
that can lead me
from my thirst?
That can satisfy my mind?
Or are they flat and dry
like the chaff
that will be burned,
that no one stirs
for a return,
that captures mercy
with a line?
– Rita A. Simmonds
AS WE CAN SEE IN SACRED SCRIPTURE, mercy is a key word that indicates God’s action towards us. He does not limit himself merely 44o affirming his love, but makes it visible and tangible. Love, after all, can never be just an abstraction. By its very nature, it indicates something concrete: intentions, attitudes, and behaviors that are shown in daily living….
In order to be capable of mercy, therefore, we must first of all dispose ourselves to listen to the Word of God. This means rediscovering the value of silence in order to meditate on the Word that comes to us. In this way, it will be possible to contemplate God’s mercy and adopt it as our lifestyle.
Let us not fall into humiliating indifference or a monotonous routine that prevents us from discovering what is new! Let us ward off destructive cynicism! Let us open our eyes and see the misery of the world, the wounds of our brothers and sisters who are denied their dignity, and let us recognize that we are compelled to heed their cry for help! May we reach out to them and support them so they can feel the warmth of our presence, our friendship, and our fraternity! May their cry become our own, and together may we break down the barriers of indifference that too often reign supreme and mask our hypocrisy and egoism!
– Misericordiae Vultus 9, 13, 15
Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
THÉRÉSE († 1897) ENTERED the Lisieux Carmel at fifteen and died there at age twenty-four of tuberculosis. At that time, many Carmelites were offering themselves as victims to God’s justice. Thérèse died having offered herself as an oblation to God’s mercy. But she was in the business of saving souls long before this.
Thérèse was only fourteen when she heard of Pranzini, a criminal convicted of having committed three murders on one night. The newspapers were full of information about him, including reports of his total lack of repentance. Thérèse wanted to obtain this grace for him. She felt certain that Jesus could heal Pranzini all at once, as he had healed the repentant thief as he hung on the cross. She prayed for him, took on penances for him, had a Mass offered. “I wanted at all cost to prevent him from falling into hell,” she said.
Thérèse had full confidence that Jesus would hear her, but, for her own consolation, she asked for a sign. When the papers arrived with news of Pranzini’s execution, Thérèse rushed to read them. There it was, in black and white: just before he was to meet the executioner, Pranzini had called out, “Bring me a cross.” Witnesses confirmed that he pressed his lips to it three times. Thérèse called Pranzini “my first child.”
– Lisa Lickona
The Relationship between
Justice and Mercy
SAINT THOMAS SAYS that if there were some sin God was unwilling to forgive even though the sinner wanted forgiveness, then God would—impossibly—be overcome by man. This counter-factual is a key to many things.
If our sin could outrun the mercy of God, then the scope of Christ’s redemption would be quite other than what we think it is. Christ dies for all sins of all sinners from the dawn of Eden to the twilight of Armageddon. Saint Thomas’ counter-factual supposes a divine will at odds with itself: it envisages some sin Christ dies to efface as somehow withdrawn from the divine purpose that sent him into the world.
Because the death of Christ is figured in the New Testament as a price paid for our sins, it is counted as a manifestation not only of divine mercy but also of divine justice, wherein Christ fulfills the just requirements of the law. But justice is fulfilled only in such a way as to display the divine mercy all the more. It is better for us that Christ fulfills the just requirement of the law and so makes satisfaction for our sins. It is better and so more merciful because it opens up a way for us, too, to share in the work of reparation. The Lord Jesus makes us friends with him in his own work of saving us.
Christ’s redemption not only fulfills the original purpose of creation but fulfills it according to the very idea of creation. We don’t usually think of creation as an act of mercy, but Saint Thomas thought of it so. Evidently, there is no justice according to which an unreal creature claims being from God. Bringing the whole being of the creature out of nothing is rather a kind of mercy to the creature: it saves him from the darkness of non-being; it brings him into the warmth and the light of what is, positively reflecting the divine goodness. And the manner of the redemption, in which mercy triumphs over justice, imitates the original manner of creation itself.
Creation is also an imitation of the Father’s generation of the Son (and the procession of the Spirit from both Father and Son). The assertion of the perfect equality of the Persons one to another, an upshot of the Arian controversy, shows us a kind of “justice” to be observed in the Trinity. But this just equality is a result of a logically prior generosity or “mercy” whereby the Father begets the Son by giving him all that he is and has. The “justice” of the equality of the Persons, in other words, is founded in the “mercy” of the processions, a mercy, a goodness, a generosity than which nothing more primordial can be thought.
– Father Guy Mansini, O.S.B.
BEATEN, betrayed, and hung from a cross, he cries out to his Father to forgive us. He cries out for my salvation and covers me in his mercy. I weep at the price paid for my eternity, humbled by his graciousness, and long to live his command: “Be merciful, just as [also] your Father is merciful” (Lk 6:36).
I focus my thoughts on him and yearn to exist in a place where it is his face, not mine, that shines through every encounter. I seek his direction and pray his will be done. I cast out my fear of making a mistake, and pray, if I miss an opportunity, he will afford me one more chance. Despite my prayers and pleas, at times I find fault, press on in my timing, and become consumed with worldly desires. I breathe the tainted air of judgment, wallow in what I’ve decided should’ve been, and fixate on my needs. Even though I am blinded and lose sight of his commands, he stands firm.
The weight of the world leaves me exhausted, and the realization that I have strayed chokes me. I fall to my knees and beg for forgiveness. In that instant—that very moment—he renews and reminds me of a love far greater than worldly definition. He does not begrudge missed opportunities and selfish actions. He is merciful, and restores footing. He forgives and wipes clean my stains. He is love, and stands vigil over my life.
– Jennifer Hubbard
A MAN I KNOW HAS LIVED most of his life trying to deal with the pain he experienced in his relationship with his mother while growing up. Trying to come to terms with this he studied and considered much, yet this issue continued to overwhelm and obsess him. One day I said to him, “Hey, look, you just have to forgive her. That’s all.”
But where does the ability to forgive come from? If the hurt we have received seems to have stolen our lives from us, has darkened our days and twisted our choices, how is it possible simply to set this aside? Something has to happen. We have to beg for something we cannot produce ourselves, ask that our entreaty be met by grace that overcomes death itself.
This is the mercy that the Holy Spirit proclaims through the mouth of Zechariah in his blessing song at his son’s circumcision (Lk 1:76-78): John the Baptist “will go before the Lord/…[announcing]…/ forgiveness of [our] sins,/ because of the tender mercy of our God/ by which the daybreak from on high will visit us.”
Something of that daybreak must have reached my friend, because his mother called me one day to say that he had stopped by just to hug her silently. Mercy consists not simply in working things through but in begging for the grace to embrace our lives and to be grateful for everything.
– Father Vincent Nagle, F.S.C.B.
A Scriptural Litany of Mercy
Throughout the ages, almighty God has manifested his unfailing mercy.
Lord, have mercy on us.
O infinite, divine mercy, you are:
Elijah’s unlimited jar of flour feeding the widow.
Elijah’s victory over the prophets of Baal.
The tiny whispering sound Elijah heard on the mountain.
The cure of Naaman the leper.
The new eyesight given to Tobit.
The conquering might of Judith.
The intervention of Esther that saved her people from destruction.
The valor of the mother with her seven martyred sons.
The compassion shown to Job.
The shepherd sung of by the Psalmist.
The lover sought in the Song of Songs.
Divine Wisdom, overlooking sins so that people may repent.
The comfort proclaimed by the Prophet Isaiah.
The expiation of guilt proclaimed by the Prophet Isaiah.
The wolf and the lamb grazing together.
The voice that formed us in our mother’s womb.
The new law within us, written on our heart.
The new heart and new spirit replacing our stony heart.
The spirit and flesh put on once-dry bones.
The rescue of the young men from the fiery furnace.
The espousal to the Lord of the unfaithful wife.
The fish that swallowed Jonah, saving him from drowning.
The preaching of Jonah, converting the great city of Nineveh.
The Day of the Lord foretold by the prophets.
– Father Peter John Cameron, O.P.
The Visitation (Lk 1:39-45)
Our souls leapt
suddenly sanctified
at the voice of the Virgin—
her hidden divinity
swelling inside.
At the sound of her voice
the heart
we didn’t know
beat a solid pound,
hit a kindred note.
She came to us
“in haste”
like the wind
carrying the sea,
and poured
into our laps
the teeming gifts
she couldn’t keep.
She is voyager and star—
the brightest of our race.
She grows our harbored hope
beneath her billowed cape.
– Rita A. Simmonds
ONLY WHEN I DISCOVER that [God] loves me in spite of all my infidelities, when I really discover the mercy of God to me, only then shall I discover the true, compassionate face of Jesus: only then shall I discover that I was a captive, I was the oppressed. He comes to break the yoke. I am the one who had the yoke on my shoulders and yet did not know it: I was blind.
Now you have liberated me…; you have made me free…. [Jesus] comes to make us free, to give us the freedom of the Spirit. He takes away the yoke which crushes our shoulders. This doesn’t mean that he liberates us from worries or administration, these are our problems. But he renders these problems very light if we let the Spirit come into us. “Come to me, all you who labor, and rest.” All you who labor in administration, put your worries in the hands of Jesus.
If we are firmly convinced how weak and incapable we are, how our decisions are frequently tainted by egocentric motivations, how unfaithful we are to the Spirit, how sinful and unloving we really are, he will transform our hearts and give us a new strength. Conscious of our weakness, we must at the same time maintain a living and burning hope, and a confidence that he is with us; that he helps us, that he loves us and guides us. Then we can begin to live without too much worry.
– Jean Vanier
Saint John Bosco
JOHN BOSCO († 1888) was nine when he received his calling in a dream: he was to be an apostle to youth. At this very young age he began to seek out other boys, amazing them with his magic tricks or his juggling skills. From the fun, John moved effortlessly into catechesis. Soon, he had his friends praying the rosary.
After seminary and ordination, John was assigned to Turin, Italy, where the world had lately changed. Families had migrated to the city for factory work. Often young boys were untended, wandering the streets with no place to go. Crime was common. Don Bosco first befriended little lonesome Bartholomew Garelli and his few comrades. More and more boys began to come to his weekly “Oratory”: catechesis, Mass, games, and outings. Soon John was taking in homeless boys and finding ways to train them for jobs. Money was always in short supply, but his pious mother came to help. Just when the work seemed too much, other young men joined him, the first Salesians.
Love and the sacraments were the pillars of John’s “system.” He told the boys: “My children, jump, run, and play and make all the noise you want, but avoid sin like the plague and you will surely gain heaven.” And he told his followers: “As far as possible avoid punishing…. Try to gain love before inspiring fear.”
– Lisa Lickona
“I WAS HUNGRY AND YOU GAVE ME FOOD” (Mt 25:35). Nothing but the literal meaning of these words should be accepted. This statement may shock us, and yet a deep conviction in faith that Christ himself is present in the poor must be our primary motive in performing the corporal works of mercy. Any interpretation of Matthew 25 and the corporal works that would diminish or dilute Jesus’ words, reducing them to symbolic evocations, contradicts his own clear statements. It is he whom we feed in the poor.
That is how saints understood all the corporal works of mercy. Mother Teresa is a contemporary example: “We should not serve the poor like they were Jesus. We should serve the poor because they are Jesus.” In giving food to the hungry, whether we realize it or not, we place ourselves before the concealed presence of Christ himself, who has chosen to become one with the poor. The action directed to a real human person is always, inseparably, also touching a hidden but real presence of Christ himself.
Third-world poverty demands a first thought in this regard. Famine can be a tragic reality for the parched countries that suffer drought, as in Somalia a few years ago. The Gospel asks us to be mindful of this suffering, not to forget, not to wait until the next dry season in order to take notice. The world’s poorest do not disappear simply because the journalists and cameras have departed.
There is another thought, however, to ponder regarding the hunger of the poor. The downtrodden lives that we brush up against in our cities may face no risk of starvation. Another form of hunger hides within these lives. Mother Teresa became very aware of this other hunger, even as her own experience was rooted in harsh third world poverty. “Poverty doesn’t only consist of being hungry for bread…. We need to love and to be somebody for someone else.” I remember a day more than thirty years ago when she visited the soup kitchen run by her sisters in the South Bronx. She entered the long room lined with tables on either side. Many knew her already, greeted her, reached out their hands to her. She made her way slowly, exchanging hellos. As she reached the last table, she took a quick step to the left and bent down to one man. She placed her hand on his arm, spoke some words in his ear. Then she turned and addressed the crowd.
I looked to see who had received this special attention. He was the only old man in the room, a lonely figure in a Bronx soup kitchen. Hungry in soul, needing more than bread, this worn old man provoked the act of love from the saint of Calcutta.
– Father Donald Haggerty
“I DON’T KNOW WHAT DAY IT IS,” says the old man, awake in the morning and delighted to find himself still among the living. “I don’t know anything at all. I am quite a baby” (Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol).
Every speaker of English knows his name: Ebenezer Scrooge. Everyone knows he is a changed man. He is no longer the ruthless collector of bad debts. He will keep Christmas in his heart till the end of his days.
But we don’t read our Gospels closely enough. For Scrooge really is quite a baby. When he and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come invisibly visited the Cratchit family, mourning for Tiny Tim, the older boy Peter was reading to the other children:
And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them.
Dickens didn’t need to quote the rest. His readers could supply it. Unless we are converted, and become as little children, we shall not enter the Kingdom of heaven.
Scrooge had driven from his door a choir of children singing the old carol “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”—and we should be merry, because Jesus our Savior is born among us, “to save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray.” The Child comes, to make us children.
Scrooge can testify to that.
– Anthony Esolen
The Gift (Lk 2:1-14)
It’s Christmas Eve and we will travel
a long way on a cold night
thinking of the twinkling lights,
the golden bulbs, the heirloom crèche,
the smell of sweets and spice.
A hearty greeting at the door!
The family, friends in velvet clothes
of red and black and gold with bows.
The hugs, the kiss, the Christmas wreath.
In we’ll go, and sing and glow
and eat our ham and beef.
We’ll join loud fun as one by one
we find our gifts beneath the tree.
We’ll toast and tease before the hearth,
kick off our heels, amused and warm—
embraced, enwrapped in Christmas charm.
Now we arrive, and all is hushed.
The place is cold. We see our breath.
The cow and pig have not been killed.
There’re lambs and goats alive as well.
The place is full of foreign folk,
battered guests and tattered hosts.
The floor is dirt. There is no tree.
No one has offered food or drink.
We’ve traveled far but cannot sit.
We see a light and just one Gift.
Is this one Gift for all to share?
This scene is death to Christmas cheer.
I stood and thought of all I’d missed—
until I knelt before the Gift.
– Rita A. Simmonds
A Scriptural Litany of Mercy
Throughout the ages, almighty God has manifested his unfailing mercy.
Lord, have mercy on us.
O infinite, divine mercy, you are:
The angel’s announcement to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The Fiat of the holy Mother of God.
The courage convicting Saint Joseph in his sleep.
The tidings of Good News to the shepherds in the fields.
The star guiding the Magi to the Bethlehem manger.
The tender will awaited by the long-suffering leper.
The healing of all those afflicted and sick.
The silencer of the storms at sea.
The expeller of demons.
The paralytic’s ability to walk.
The sight given to the blind.
The hearing given to the deaf.
The hundredfold sprouting from the well-sown seed.
The deliciousness of Cana’s wondrous wine.
The new beginning in Christ’s call, “Follow me.”
The multiplied loaves for famished multitudes.
The desire that moves us to change and become like children.
The thirst of the Samaritan woman at the well.
The garment’s hem within reach of the hemorrhaging woman.
The urgency dispatching the shepherd in search of lost sheep.
The buoyancy by which Peter walks on the water.
The life restored to the widow of Nain’s dead son.
The welcome given the sinful woman who washes Jesus’ feet.
The miraculous change promised us all in the Transfiguration.
– Father Peter John Cameron, O.P.
A Prayer for All Families (Lk 2:41-52)
Heavenly Father,
Who called Your only Son
in obedience
away from the caravan
to Your House,
have mercy on our families.
Like Mary and Joseph
whose twelve-year-old son went missing,
we are often anxious and upset,
and we cannot comprehend
Your Will.
Let the family
be the place
where Your only Son is free to dwell.
Have mercy on us all:
the intact
the extended
the broken
the blended
the dysfunctional
the upended.
Bring Salvation to our steps
and let us open our door
and embrace
the strange and holy family
of Nazareth.
– Rita A. Simmonds
WHAT A DEPTH OF THOUGHT unreels from the words of Psalm 33: Let your mercy, O Lord, be upon us, as we have hoped in you (Ps 33:22)…. Indeed, someone might inquire: “How far can we count on God’s mercy?” For although in itself it is infinite and limitless, yet we, as created beings, can partake of it only in a limited, finite way.
The above-quoted words of David…provide us with an answer: Let your mercy, O Lord, be upon us according to the measure of our hope in you. In other words, the amount of mercy obtained by us from God corresponds to the greatness of our hope in him. The more we trust in God, the more abundantly shall we draw from the treasures of his mercy. The measure is, therefore, in our own hands since it depends on the hope we have in the Lord.
If we remind God of our hope, we can obtain from him ever more and more. God wishes us to appeal to him with confidence because such a confession of faith and hope in his mercy is an unending hymn of praise of his infinite perfection. Saint John of the Cross remembered this well, saying that God never refused him any grace when he implored him with the words of Psalm 119, Be you mindful of your word to your servant: in which you have given me hope (Ps 119:49). Is that “Word of God” anything other than his mercy revealed to us?
– Servant of God Father Hyacinth Woroniecki, O.P.
Saint Marguerite D’Youville
MARGUERITE († 1771) was twenty-nine when her husband François died. She soon learned that François, who lived by trading liquor with the Indians in Montreal, had squandered all of their money. She was left with two little ones to care for. Perhaps all of this would have been unbearable had she not met a Sulpician priest three years earlier who introduced her to the Confraternity of the Holy Family. She had learned to entrust all to God’s providence.
And so the poor widow gathered her strength and found a way to provide for her sons. And she gave from what little she had, tending to the poor, who were all around her. In 1737, she brought a blind woman home. A month later, three friends pledged to help Marguerite serve the poor from her house. The constant comings and goings of the indigent set her neighbors’ teeth on edge. They feared that the worst excesses of François’ liquor trade were continuing under Marguerite. They dubbed the women the “Grey Sisters,” “grey” in French being slang for “drunken.”
Years later, when the sisters had overcome every obstacle—dire poverty, fires, resistance of the authorities—to continue to serve the poor, Marguerite insisted that they remain the “Grey Sisters.” That name, she said, would “remind us of the insults of the beginnings, and keep us humble.”
– Lisa Lickona
“I WAS THIRSTY AND YOU GAVE ME DRINK” (Mt 25:35). Among the corporal works of mercy identified by Jesus in Matthew 25, this action in particular compels an immediate thought of his Passion. The words invoke a link to the last moments of Jesus’ agony on the cross, when he himself cried out the words “I thirst” (Jn 19:28). John’s Gospel recounts that sour wine was then placed on a branch of hyssop and lifted to the lips of Jesus, who received it and shortly after died.
The connection between Matthew 25 and Jesus’ own cry of thirst on the cross is necessary to ponder if we are to realize fully the significance of all the corporal works of mercy. In his words of thirst on the cross, a great mystery confronts us. A divine act may have taken place, not just the human cry of suffering from a man parched and bleeding to death.
