By DONALD DeMARCO
Today, as I write this, is November 30, a fitting day to write about mercy. It was on this final day of the 11th month of the year in 1980 that St. John Paul II published his second encyclical, Dives in Misericordia (“Rich in Mercy”).
It serves as excellent prelude to and preparation for a better understanding of the yearlong celebration of the Jubilee of Mercy proclaimed by Pope Francis for 2016. In the words of the reigning Pontiff, “The Church must be a place of mercy freely given, where everyone can feel welcomed, loved, forgiven, and encouraged to live the good life of the Gospel.”
Thirty-five years is roughly the equivalent of a generation. The Church’s affirmation of the importance of mercy is hardly new, though its emphasis over the years can easily be forgotten or ignored. In the fourth century, for example, St. Ambrose stated something that would have caused St. John Paul to rejoice: “Mercy, also, is a good thing, for it makes men perfect, in that it imitates the perfect Father. Nothing graces the Christian soul so much as mercy.”
The world is in the business of “news,” delivering “today’s news today.” The Church has a much broader view of things. We should recall what Christ told us more than 2,000 years ago: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (1 Cor. 4:1).
St. John Paul begins the most intensely theological of his encyclicals by announcing to the world that “God is rich in mercy” and the one to whom “Jesus Christ has revealed to us as Father: It is His very Son who, in Himself, has manifested Him and made Him known to us.”
God is the “Father of mercies,” a truth that should be a source of hope and consolation for all who are suffering. “In the context of today’s threats to man,” the mercy of God makes “a unique appeal addressed to the Church.”
Krakow, Poland, was the center of the “Divine Mercy” devotion promoted by Faustina Kowalska. Sr. Faustina had a series of mystical experiences through which she believed that she was called to renew the Church’s devotion to God’s mercy. The “Merciful Jesus” icon associated with her message shows Christ in a white garment with two rays emanating from his breast. It represents a vision she had on February 22, 1931. St. John Paul acknowledged that he felt “very near” to Sr. Faustina and had been “thinking about her for a long time” prior to writing Dives in Misericordia.
Another important influence in writing his encyclical is the notion of fatherhood, one that had captured his imagination and deepened over the years. Life with his own father and Adam Cardinal Sapieha had given him a strong sense of both familial and spiritual paternity. He also thought of his own priesthood as a form of paternity.
Central to St. John Paul’s encyclical is the Parable of the Prodigal Son, an account that reveals the mercy of the father, a virtue that belongs to the essence of fatherhood. The father fully recognizes the waywardness of his son. More important, however, he recognizes the fundamental good and dignity of his humanity. The son invites mercy because he has returned home and has repudiated his sinful ways. The father awaits the return of his son with hope, rushes toward his long-lost son when he does return, and embraces him with love. The son has squandered his inheritance. But his humanity is saved.
“Love is ‘greater’ than justice,” writes the late Pontiff, because “it is primary and fundamental.” Yet justice plays a crucial role in relation to the dispensation and acceptance of mercy. “Mercy is the fulfillment of justice, not its abolition,” St. Thomas Aquinas states in his Summa Theologica (I, 21, 3). Mercy cannot be given, willy-nilly, to the unrepentant. They do not want mercy because they have rejected justice. Love is more fundamental than mercy, but so is justice. The prodigal son saw the truth of his errant ways. He did not rationalize or deny them. His acceptance of justice rendered him eligible for the acceptance of mercy.
This point is well dramatized in Heinrich von Kleist’s play, The Prince of Homburg. Frederick William, the Elector of Brandenburg’s son, Prince Frederick of Homburg, disobeys an important military order. He is subsequently tried and condemned to die. For some time, the son refuses to acknowledge that his sentence was just. Finally, he comes to the realization that his disobedience and concern for self-glory fully warranted the death penalty. At that point, his joyful father tears up the death warrant and pardons his son. The Prince was eligible for his father’s mercy only when he was willing to accept justice. As Shakespeare adds, “Mercy seasons justice.”
The prodigal son and the Prince in Kleist’s play represent a kind of Everyman who, owing to human weakness, stray from righteousness. The faithful fathers in both of these stories go beyond justice, without abandoning it, and restore their sons to the fundamental truths of their humanity. True mercy in no way humiliates or makes passive its recipient. Rather it confirms him in his dignity and humanity. Through mercy, inspired by love, human dignity is regained.
St. Bernard, in his Sermons on the Canticle of Canticles, put the matter quite poetically when he wrote: “Happy is the soul who has made it her business to collect miseries, to pour on them the oil of mercy and heat them on the fire of love!”
If we want mercy, we should be merciful to our neighbor. The Year of Mercy should be the year when we behave more mercifully to others.
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(Dr. Donald DeMarco is a senior fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, Conn., and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review. His latest works, How to Remain Sane in a World That Is Going Mad; Poetry That Enters the Mind and Warms the Heart; and How to Flourish in a Fallen World are available through Amazon.com.
(Some of his recent writings may be found at Human Life International’s Truth and Charity Forum. He is the 2015 Catholic Civil Rights League recipient of the prestigious Exner Award.)
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