©
This is a summary of the Schola Brevis
by Dr.Fr. Antony Samy, the Professor of Scripture at St. Albert’s College
Ranchi, on the occasion of the inauguration of the Academic Year 2016-17,
Delivered on July, 2016 at SAC Auditorium, Ranchi, Jharkhand.
JESUS,
THE FACE OF THE MERCIFUL FATHER
INTRODUCTION
Dr.
Varghese Kurien’s (1921-2012) compassionate approach: An employee stealthily
drinks milk ... Rule: every employee be given half a litre of milk to drink
while she/he is at work. He displays his heavenly Father’s face of mercy” (A. Thottakara, W & W 49, 2016, 1).
Since
Pope Francis’ election, his simple message of mercy, service, and renewal has
spread to every corner of the world. His Apostolic Bull (Misericordiae Vultus
[MV], “The Face of Mercy”) opens with these words “Jesus Christ is the face of
the Father’s mercy,” identifying the core of “the mystery of the Christian
faith.” Mercy is a concrete reality through which God reveals his love as
father or a mother, moved to the very depths out of love for their child. It has
become living and visible in Jesus of Nazareth. Mercy is a person (Heb 1:1-2;
Jn 1:14,18).
A
person’s face conveys a lot: their facial expressions; their mood, their
responses, their attitudes and their demeanour. In other words, a face is an
outward expression of an internal reality; it’s what makes the invisible,
visible. As Pope Francis points out, “In Jesus Christ, this mercy culminates in
so great an act as to hold back nothing to save us, not even death on a cross.”
1. CONTEXT FOR
THE JUBILEE YEAR OF MERCY[1]
Digitalized
and dissipated world, consciously and consistently seeking after varied ‘M’s:
Money, Modernity, Mobility, Manufacture, Management, Multiplicity, even
Manipulation. In this scenario, Mercy is mercilessly dismissed and conveniently
‘thrown away’ (J. Rosario, NL 10). The Year of Mercy is apt and appropriate for
our turbulent and terror-stricken world, inviting us to adopt a compassionate
and merciful approach.
Pope
Francis called this particular Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy to direct our
attention and actions on mercy so that we may become a more effective sign of
the Father’s actions in our lives ... a time when the witness of believers
might grow stronger and more effective (MV 3; K. Poovathumkudy, “MV & the
Pastoral,” 5).
Further,
he adduces the reason for the Jubilee because it is the favourable time for
mercy:
It
is the favourable time to heal wounds, … a time to offer everyone, the way of
forgiveness and reconciliation. May the Mother of God open our eyes to comprehend
the task to which we have been called; and obtain for us the grace to
experience this Jubilee of Mercy as faithful and fruitful witnesses of Christ.[2]
The joy to rediscover and render fruitful the
mercy of God, with which we are all called to give consolation to every man and
woman of our time.
Pope John XXIII: “Now the Church wishes to use
the Medicine of Mercy” (MV
No. 4; J. Rosario, NL, 10).
2. THE TERM “MERCY”
Mercy is a concept
integral to an understanding of God’s dealings with humankind. Hebrew and Greek
terms behind “mercy”: The chief Hebrew term is hesed [dsx], “steadfast love, loving-kindness, faithful love,
covenant love” -hesed expressed in “faithfulness” (emunah, hnwma), “mercy” (raham
, ~jr) and “graciousness” (hanan, !nx). In the LXX and the NT: the term is most often eleos (e[leo~) in one form or another.[3]
Raham, hesed, and hanan are interrelated, referring to the
one gracious, forgiving, loving God who is forever faithful in reaching out to
His people in their need: “God is merciful (raham; ~xr) and gracious (hanan,
!nx), slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love (hesed, dsx) and faithfulness” (Exod 34:6; Num 14:18; Neh 9:17; Ps 86:15; Ps 103:8; Ps 145:8; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2). Based in a covenantal relationship, hesed is a
steadfast, rock-solid faithfulness that endures to eternity:[4]
“Though the mountains be
shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love (hesed, e[leo~) for you will not be shaken” (Is 54:10).
eleo~ (eleos, mercy):[5] kindness or good will towards the miserable and the
afflicted, joined with a desire to help them
The Latin Misericordiae
(“mercy”): means to have a heart for the miserable.
In
English, the expressions such as “to be merciful,” “to have mercy on,” or “to
show mercy toward.” God’s
love is unconditional (hesed, “tender mercy”) and eternal which is visible, par excellence, in the Incarnation.[7]
3. THE MERCIFUL
AND COMPASSIONATE CHARACTER OF GOD
In the OT: mercy or compassion, constitutes a fundamental attribute of the
divine character (Exod 32-34). God showed Moses His divine glory (Exod 33:19)
and then proclaimed His divine name in Exod
34:6-7: “… ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful (raham; ~xr)
and gracious (hanan, !nx), slow to anger, and
abounding in steadfast love (hesed,
dsx) and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the
thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and
sin...’.” These two verses contain one of the central classic expositions on
the attributes of God in the Bible: V6 contains five attributes: merciful,
gracious, slow to anger, full of steadfast love, and faithfulness and v7
describes how these attributes are manifest in God’s dealings with His people,
specifically, “forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.”[8]
The first thing God had determined to reveal to us about His name (or
character) was that He is merciful. He is compassionate. The Creator of heaven
and earth is merciful. The One who called Abraham and delivered Israel from
Egypt is compassionate.
This particular
attribute of merciful God is central to the movement of covenantal history as
portrayed in the OT (Ps 78:38; 86:15; 103:7-14),
providing motivation for true and genuine repentance (Joel
2:12-13; 2 Chron 30:9). God’s mercy is not limited to Israel only
but it extends to all creation. “The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over
all that he had made” (Ps 145:9). The biblical testimony resists a conception of
God’s mercy that is narrowly focused. Rather, it is a ever-present force that
shapes all of reality, a pervasive impetus for hope.
In
the NT:
Mercy belongs to God (2
Cor 1:3; Jas 5:11) and this resource of mercy is inexhaustible (Eph
2:4). God’s mercy is displayed in
the ministry of Christ. Everything in Jesus’ life speaks of mercy:
Ø Jesus answered the disciples (of John), “Go and tell John
what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the
lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good
news brought to them” (Lk 7:22).
Salvation
rests on God’s mercy as executed in and through the Christ-event. When
Christians speak of mercy, they advocate gentleness, compassion, generosity,
and understanding but it is first and foremost a description of God’s nature.
The call to become merciful (Mt 5:7) is an invitation to a more non-judgmental
way of looking at others/ourselves. It is to “be merciful as your Father is merciful,”
(Lk 6:36) i.e., to participate in the very way in which God loves his
creatures. God’s mercy cannot be separated from His love, His grace, and His
faithfulness. “God is love,” (1 Jn. 4:8) for this love has been made “visible
and tangible in Jesus’ entire life.”[9]
St Maximilian Kolbe said, “Hatred is
not a creative force. Love alone creates. Suffering will not prevail over us,
it will only melt us down and strengthen us.” The NT depicts the mercy
of God in a much brighter light in the face of Jesus Christ. He was the
ultimate manifestation of God’s mercy, the assurance of that mercy for
believers, and the basis of their own mercy in their relationships with others.[10]
Pope Francis says: “The heart of Jesus is the ultimate symbol of God’s Mercy:
but it is not an imaginary symbol. It is a real symbol, which represents the
centre, the source from which salvation for all humanity gushed forth.” It is a face that gives life that brings
humanity back to life! The wonderful story of Jesus’ dialogue with the
Samaritan woman at the well (Jn 4) presents us with four principles regarding
the divine mercy.
4. FOUR LESSONS ON
DIVINE MERCY FROM THE WOMAN AT THE WELL (Jn 4):[11]
First, God’s mercy is
relentless: pious Jews of the first century diligently avoided Samaria -
apostates and half-breeds. Yet Jesus moves right through Samaria - speaks to a
woman in public (men simply didn’t do), someone known to be a sinner. Jesus
embodies the love of God, which crosses barriers, mocks taboos, and overcomes
all of the boundaries. God is filled with hesed (tender mercy) and
delights in lifting up human beings: “The glory of God is a human being fully
alive.”
Second, the divine mercy
is divinizing: The impression at times that God’s mercy serves a reparative or
healing purpose alone, solely binds up the wounds of our sin and suffering.
Jesus asks the woman at the well for a drink, thereby inviting her to
generosity. When she hesitates, citing the customary taboos, Jesus says, “If
you knew who was asking you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would
give you living water.” But God, as St. John knew, is love. Therefore,
to be filled with God is to be filled with love, which is to say,
self-emptying. In a word, our being will increase in the measure that we give
it away. This is the “water welling up to eternal life” that Jesus speaks of.
God wants not merely to bind up our wounds; he wants to make us
“partakers/partners of the divine nature.”
Third, the divine mercy
is demanding: Understanding the proclamation of the divine mercy thus: the more
we say about mercy, the less we should say about moral demand, and vice versa.
But this is repugnant to the peculiar both/and logic of the Christian gospel.
You can’t overstate the power of the divine mercy, and you can’t overstate the demand
that it makes upon us. Jesus tells the woman that she comes daily to the well
and gets thirsty again, but that he wants to give her the water that will
permanently quench her thirst. Indeed, Jesus shows that the woman exhibits this
obsessive, addictive quality of desire in regard to her relationships: when she
says that she has no husband, Jesus bluntly states, “yes, you’ve had five, and
the one you have now is not your husband.” This is not the voice of a
wishy-washy relativist and cheap grace. Rather, it is the commanding voice of
one who knows that extreme mercy awakens extreme demand.
Finally,
the divine mercy is a summons to mission: The woman realizes who Jesus is and
what he means. She puts down the water jar and goes into town to proclaim the
Lord. The jar symbolizes the rhythm of concupiscent desire, her daily return to
worldly goods in a vain attempt to assuage her spiritual hunger. How wonderful
that, having met the source of living water, she is able to set aside her
addictions to become herself a vehicle of healing for others. The very best
definition of evangelization: one starving person telling another starving
person where to find bread. Our words of proclamation will catch fire precisely
in the measure that we have been liberated and transformed by Christ.
Mercy
and compassion are rooted in the very character of God: His law commands it.
Wisdom teaches it. The prophets enjoin it and the Psalms applaud it. The fullest
expression of the mercy of God is found in the person and work of Jesus Christ,
the compassion of God incarnate. The NT represents the arrival of its fullest
expectation.[12]
5. POPE FRANCIS’
APPEAL
Pope Francis has been
making mercy a hallmark of his papacy. His Episcopal motto in Latin, “Miserando atque eligendo” means “because he
saw him through the eyes of mercy and chose him” (MV no. 8). Pope Francis related his
profound experience
of mercy in his teenage years through the sacrament of Confession:
I had actually just
gotten expelled from the public school system (because I foolishly had brought
a Boy Scout knife to school) and only the Catholic school would take me in…a
non-practicing Catholic, but my pastor invited me to serve Mass on the
anniversary of his ordination…received Communion that morning I knew that
everything was suddenly different-I was home… Although I was young, I knew what
it was like to live apart from God and to have found him. This experience of
mercy was reinforced by an eighth-grade project on the Divine Mercy devotion.
We had to produce a short paper, but my mother purchased for me the entire Divine
Mercy Diary of St. Faustina… age of fourteen, it was the first Catholic
book I had ever read and it has fundamentally shaped my life.[13]
Pope Francis: mercy to
be the very foundation of the Church’s life and her “credibility is seen in how
she shows merciful and compassionate love” (MV 10-11). The Church as a
“community [that] has an endless desire to show mercy, the fruit of its own
experience of the power of the Father’s infinite mercy.” Mercy a key to
evangelization and in the Church, especially in parishes and communities, “the
mercy of the Father must be evident” and “everyone should find an oasis of
mercy” (MV 12).
CONLUSION[14]
The
Jubilee Year of Mercy: contemplate on the “Face of Mercy” to discover new
depths of the Father’s love...anything invisible to be visible.
“Do
not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be
condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to
you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put
into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back” (Lk 6:37-38).
St Paul further
explains: “The one
who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully
will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up
your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.
And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by
always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work
… He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply
your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness. You will
be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce
thanksgiving to God through us” (2 Cor 9:6-8, 10-11).
Pope Francis: we are now
on a pilgrimage journey toward mercy. The words of Jesus above set forth the
steps on our road to mercy. May our pilgrim steps toward mercy…be ever graced
with the onward-leading hand of Christ, as we tread his example of giving and
forgiving (MV 14-15).
God’s
mercy can make even the driest land become a garden; can restore life to dry
bones (cf. Ezek 37:1-14): be renewed by God’s mercy, be loved by Jesus. Let us
enable the power of his love to transform our lives too; become agents of this
mercy, channels through which God can water the earth, protect all creation and
make justice and peace flourish.[15] Pope Francis exhorts us to live the corporal works of mercy and
the spiritual works of mercy as the normal pattern in our daily lives,
cautioning that “we will be judged on the basis of love” (MV 15).
Thank You
[1] Israel associates with the
universal pardon, individual as well as communal reconciliation (Lev 25:8-13).
[2] Pope Francis, http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2015/documents/papa-francesco_20150411_
omelia-vespri-divina-misericordia.html, 15/06/2016.
[3] P. H. Towner,
http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/mercy/, 12/04-2016; F Just, http://catholic-resources.org/
Bible/Mercy-Compassion.htm, 12/04/2016; H. Spieckermann, “God’s Steadfast Love
Towards a New Conception of Old Testament Theology,” Biblica 81 (2000) 305-327.
[4] L. Hverberg, http://ourrabbijesus.com/2012/05/02/hesed-enduring-eternal-undeserved-love/,
20/06/2016; J. Polhill, “Mercy, Merciful,” Holman Bible Dictionary, http://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/hbd/view.cgi?
n=4234, 1991, 15/06/2016.
[5] Thayer
and Smith, “Greek Lexicon entry for Eleos,”
http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/ eleos.html, 1999,
15/06/2016.
[6] See
http://dict.hinkhoj.com/mercy-meaning-in-hindi.words, 15/06/2016.
[7] R. Barron, http://www.wordonfire.org/resources/homily/hesed-all-the-way-through/4687/,
27/06/2016.
[8] M. Van Pelt,
http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/old-testament-god-compassion-and-mercy/,
17/06/2016; MV no.6 states that “God is patient and merciful” and Ps 136 gives
the refrain “For his mercy endures forever.”
[9] A. Rovati, https://millennialjournal.com/2015/04/20/mercy-is-a-person-reflections-on-the-papal-bull-misericordiae
-vultus/, 20/04/2016.
[10] J. Polhill, “Mercy, Merciful,”
Holman Bible Dictionary, http://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/hbd/ view.cgi?n=4234,
1991, 15/06/16.
[11] R. Barron,
http://www.wordonfire.org/resources/article/4-lessons-on-divine-mercy-from-the-woman-at-the-well/5185/,
20/06/2016.
[12] M. Van Pelt,
http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/old-testament-god-compassion-and-mercy/,
17/06/2016.
[13] R. J. Staudt, http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/3796/the_measure_of_mercy_francis_and_the_
extraordinary _jubilee_year.aspx, 02/06/2016.
[14] MV
no.14; M. Wood, “3 Steps Toward Mercy,”
http://www.evangeliseaustralia.com/blog/3-steps-toward-mercy.html, 15/06/2016.
[15] Pope
Francis, Easter Urbi et Orbi Message (March 31, 2013),” http://www.rcsocialjusticett.org/downloads/
parishlinkmay2015.pdf, 15/06/2016.
