The merciful love of god for us
Sr. Faustina Maria Ureña,
SCTJM
"It
is ‘God, who is rich in mercy’ 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.” This is the first line of the second
encyclical written by Venerable John Paul II, entitled Dives
in Misericordia. Our God is a god who is rich in mercy. In
fact His greatest attribute is His Mercy. He reveals this to a
religious sister of the Congregation of the sisters of Our Lady of
Mercy, Sister Maria Faustina Kowalska, in Poland. Later on Sr.
Maria Faustina will come to be known as St. Faustina, the Apostle of
Divine Mercy.
The Lord
tells St. Faustina, “Proclaim that mercy is the greatest attribute
of God. All the works of my hands are crowned with Mercy” (Diary,
301). “My Heart overflows with compassion and mercy for all”
(Diary, 1148). Venerable John Paul the II wrote in "Dives in
Misericordia" (no. 13): "the Bible, Tradition, and the whole faith
life of the People of God provide unique proof... that mercy is the
greatest of the attributes and perfections of God."
The
devotion to Divine Mercy is a call of God to man to come back to
Him, to trust t in Him, to come close to Him and know of His
infinite love for them. This devotion is not something new, in
reality as we will see, the knowledge of God’s mercy was known in
biblical times. For an example we can look at the Gospel of Luke,
in the account of the blind man who shouted out, “Jesus, Son of
David, have mercy on me” (Lk 18, 38). We see how the blind man
trusted in God and knew He could cure him and that is why he shouted
and continued to shout out to Jesus to have mercy on him. The
message of God’s Merciful love is for all man and for all ages it is
also a message and devotion for us here today.
What is
God’s mercy? We can define the mercy of God as the response of God
who comes to the aid of his children who are weak. No one can
demand God’s mercy and no one can say they deserve it, it is simply
a grace of God’s love that He freely pours upon His children. In
reality man deserve the divine justice for all his acts and sins
against God, but God chooses to reveal himself as the King of
Mercy. On one occasion the Lord speaking to St. Faustina said, “My
Heart overflows with great mercy for souls, and especially for poor
sinners…For them I swell in the tabernacle as King of Mercy” (Diary
367)
Sin is the
greatest misery and being man a sinner he is considered miserable.
There is though a very important distinction between misery and the
one who is miserable, it is that God hates sin, but not the
sinner. God loves man who is miserable and very weak. This love of
God for man is defined as Mercy. Mercy is not precisely compassion
or pardon; these are the effects of mercy. Divine mercy is an
attribute of God that only exists for his children. For God to be
merciful there first must be misery. St. Francis de Sales explains
this, “Even if God did not create man, He would always be perfect in
love, but in reality would not be able to be merciful because mercy
can only be exercised for that which is misery or miserable… our
misery is the throne of the Mercy of God.”
The Divine Mercy of God has been revealed to us throughout all of
salvation history. From the first book of the Sacred Scripture, the
book of Genesis, man decides to go against God and His will and the
Lord gives him the opportunity to amend their fault and return to
Him with all their heart. God, who is rich in mercy uses all, even
evil actions, to bring about a greater good. We see this with the
sin of Adam and Eve. To be merciful with someone, there must first
exist misery. God takes this opportunity to reveal to man His
infinite love for him, His infinite mercy. We can say that it is
through sin, that man can know of God’s Divine Mercy. In the
encyclical “Dives in Misericordia”, Venerable John Paul II states:
“In the eschatological fulfillment mercy will be revealed as love,
while in the temporal phase, in human history, which is at the same
time the history of sin and death, love must be revealed above all
as mercy and must also be actualized as mercy” (# 11).
In the Book
of the Prophet Jeremiah we see how God calls back His people letting
them know that He is merciful, that He forgives their sins: “Go,
proclaim these words toward the north, and say: Return, rebel
Israel, says the LORD, I will not remain angry with you; For I am
merciful, says the LORD, I will not continue my wrath forever. Only
know your guilt: how you rebelled against the LORD, your God, How
you ran hither and yon to strangers (under every green tree) and
would not listen to my voice, says the LORD. Return, rebellious
children, says the LORD, for I am your Master;..I will appoint over
you shepherds after my own heart, who will shepherd you wisely and
prudently.” (Jr 3, 12-15).
There are a
lot of places in the Old Testament that speak to us or reveal to us
the mercy of God towards His people, we see this specially in the
Psalms, but I think the Prophet Jonah summarized it well, being
frustrated because the Lord forgave the people of Ninive, after they
believed and repented, he says to the Lord: “I beseech you, LORD,…is
not this what I said while I was still in my own country? This is
why I fled at first to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and
merciful God, slow to anger, rich in clemency, loathe to punish.”
The entire
book of the Prophet Jonah prepares us for the Gospel presentation of
God who is Love. The New Testament reveals to us the merciful love
of the Holy Trinity. In the New Testament we learn that God is
mercy and we also learn that we too must be merciful. The greatest
act of divine mercy is that God sent His only Son to the world for
our salvation. The word became incarnate so that we may know the
love of God: “In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God
sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through
him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved
us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins” (1 Jn, 4:9-10). All
powerful God intervened in the world of the prophets for the
salvation of His people, but He knew that for the salvation of men
He had to do a greater act. In His wisdom and infinite love, He
sends His Son, Jesus Christ. He sent Jesus so that through His
death we may have life and following His life and example and with
His grace, man would be capable of salvation. “The love of God has
been poured out into our hearts through the holy Spirit that has
been given to us. For Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died
at the appointed time for the ungodly. Indeed, only with difficulty
does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one
might even find courage to die. But God proves his love for us in
that while we were still sinners Christ died for us” (Rm 5, 5-8).
Jesus Christ reveals to us the love of God for His children through
parables, His actions, in the institution of the sacrament of
penance and in the institution of the Holy Eucharist. “Especially
through His lifestyle and through His actions, Jesus revealed that
love is present in the world in which we live - an effective love, a
love that addresses itself to man and embraces everything that makes
up his humanity. This love makes itself particularly noticed in
contact with suffering, injustice and poverty - in contact with the
whole historical "human condition," which in various ways manifests
man's limitation and frailty, both physical and moral. It is
precisely the mode and sphere in which love manifests itself that in
biblical language is called ‘mercy’” (Dives, 3)
Jesus
crucifixion and death speak to us about the infinite mercy of God.
“For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we
might become the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor 5, 21). Christ
died for our sins. In His passion and death “absolute justice is
expressed, for Christ undergoes the passion and cross because of the
sins of humanity. This constitutes even a "superabundance" of
justice, for the sins of man are "compensated for" by the sacrifice
of the Man-God. Nevertheless, this justice, which is properly
justice "to God's measure," springs completely from love: from the
love of the Father and of the Son, and completely bears fruit in
love” (Dives, 7). The sacrifice of the Lord was not only in the
cross; this was the culmination of His sacrifice. In reality form
the moment of His conception, His martyrdom began, but His sacrifice
did not end in the cross either, Christ wished to immortalize His
sacrifice staying with us in the Holy Eucharist until the end of
times. “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age”
(Mt 20:28).
Throughout
the history of the Church we find many saints who speak and proclaim
the mercy of God. Many of the Church fathers are quoted saying,
“Jesus saved the good thief at the last hour of his death, so that
we who are sinners will never doubt the mercy of God. St. John
Chrysostom explains that all that God does is derived from his mercy
and clemency. St. Augustine says, “God is so just and patient with
His children, that not even the heretic must distrust of His mercy
nor run away from Him, for even the most rotten of God’s creatures,
when they come into contact with God their bones will flourish.”
St.
Margaret Mary Alacoque, in the seventeenth century, directed our
gaze the to the Sacred Heart of Jesus to find the ineffable love of
Divine Love. God told St. Margaret Mary “sinners will find in My
Heart and ocean of Mercy”. St. Therese of the Child Jesus wrote in
one of her letters, “Ever since I have been given the grace to
understand also the love of the Heart of Jesus, I admit that is has
expelled all fears from my heart. The remembrance of my faults
humbles me, draws me never to depend on my strength which is only
weakness, but this remembrance speaks to me of mercy and love even
more” (June 21, 1897). There have been many saints, blessed, and
lay who throughout the centuries have recognized and proclaimed the
mercy of God. But, it was in the XX century, in which the Lord
called forth his own Apostle of Divine Mercy, He wanted His own
secretary of mercy, and He chose St. Maria Faustina to be so. The
Lord told St. Faustina, “You will prepare the world for my final
coming” (Diary, 429) and “the rays of mercy will pass through
you…and they will go out through all the world” (Diary, 441). On
another occasion the Lord tells St. Faustina: "My daughter, know
that My Heart is mercy itself. From this sea of mercy, graces flow
out upon the whole world. No soul that has approached Me has ever
gone away unconsoled. All misery gets buried in the depths of My
mercy, and every saving and sanctifying grace flows from this
fountain..." (Diary, 1777).
"My mercy
is greater than your sins and those of the entire world. Who can
measure the extent of my goodness? For you I descended from heaven
to earth; for you I allowed myself to be nailed to the cross; for
you I let my Sacred Heart be pierced with a lance, thus opening wide
the source of mercy for you. Come, then, with trust to draw graces
from this fountain. I never reject a contrite heart. Your misery has
disappeared in the depths of My mercy" (Diary, 1485).
Psalm 22 is quoted in the New Testament as a prophecy that would
happen to Jesus, in verse 15 we read, “My heart has become like wax,
it melts away within me”. The Lord’s Heart out of His inmense love
for us has become like wax, has melted within Him so that at the
time of His death, when the soldier pierced His side, His infinite
mercy would become visible for all. “One soldier thrust his lance
into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out” (Jn 19,
34). God could not contain His love and mercy for us anymore and
therefore He gives Himself totally to us from the cross. Let us not
waste this precious gift of God’s Mercy. Let us trust in God’s
mercy with all our hearts and run to His fountain of mercy, His
Pierced Heart.
Let us hear
God’s plea, spoken to St. Faustina, but really said to all of us:
“My Heart overflows with great mercy for souls, and especially for
poor sinners. If only they could understand that I am the best of
Fathers to them and that it is for them that the Blood and Water
flowed from My Heart as from a fount overflowing with mercy. For
them I dwell in the tabernacle as King of Mercy. I desire to bestow
My graces upon souls, but they do not want to accept them. You, at
least, come to Me as often as possible and take these graces they do
not want to accept. In this way you will console My Heart...”
(Diary, 367).