The Quality of Mercy

On the first Sunday of November this year, instead of celebrating the "next Sunday in Ordinary Time," Catholics in most parts of the world celebrated the feast of All Saints Day, November 1st. I've always enjoyed this feast day, probably because we also celebrated two other days at the same time: Halloween, which is always a lot of fun, and All Souls Day, which is November 2nd. It always seemed like a great run of good days.

Halloween needed no explanation. It was pure fun. I enjoyed it as a child, and when my own children hit the age to enjoy it, I enjoyed it as an adult. I often dressed up in costume, and always went along with them, door-to-door. When we lived on Capital Hill, we designated our house as the place where all our friends could stop with their children and have a beer, while the kids could bob for apples and get plenty of candy. Once Joan and I dressed up as vampires together -- totally gross. But pure fun.

All Souls was really good too -- a time when we remember those who have died. Now that I'm older, I have a lot of friends and family members who have died before me, and it's a good time to remember them, and the part they've played in my life. But back when I was a child, I didn't know anyone who had ever died, so we'd remember those that no one remembered, especially those who hadn't yet gone to heaven and were still waiting, sorting through the things they had done wrong or people they had hurt ... They were called "the poor souls in purgatory," and I remember my mom telling me that whenever I was having a headache or toothache or any other kind of difficulty, that I should just offer it up to God "for the poor souls in purgatory," and they'd find relief, and eventually release. I found it was a wonderful way, actually, to be introduced to the redemptive power of suffering.

But All Saints day... I was never quite too sure of what it meant to be a part of the Communion of Saints, although we Catholics always declare our belief in it every time we recite the Creed. Oh sure, I knew that it was a grand Communion -- a community of all those, living and dead, who were open to God's love and grace... we were all Saints, even those of us alive if we hadn't sinned gravely, and even those nobody had ever heard of. It is a great idea, and one day I hope to really see what that Communion is all about.

But this is all a digression. What I especially enjoyed on that Sunday was reading the Gospel for that feast day... which is the Beatitudes, probably the best-known of all scripture passages. Even non-Christians applaud the wisdom of those lines in the Sermon on the Mount. They're good words to live by. Whenever I pray over those words, I allow myself to focus on just one of those beatitudes. This time, the words that hit me were "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain (receive) mercy."

And... at first it worried me. I don't often think about being merciful to others. What does that mean? I don't think about ever being in the position to dispense mercy... I've so often thought of mercy as something that a judge dispenses (or not) to people that are being sentenced. But you know, I really do WANT to receive mercy if I need it... and I am forced to believe that I need it, even though I don't like admitting that at all, much less on a blog! So this reflection drove me first to think of the things that I'd hope that I receive mercy for. You can start with the fact that I have a good warm home to live in with a roof over my head, and meals whenever I need them, and a bed that I could right now curl up in and be comfortable... when many of my brothers and sisters in the world lack even those simple things that I take for granted. It's so easy to feel that I've worked hard for these things, and I deserve them.

But I really know that the goods of this earth are supposed to be shared... and that the homeless, the hungry, the forgotten... all of them have a claim on me, if I forget them, and fail to remember their needs, and neglect to share the goods that I've been lucky enough to have and enjoy in this life. And so... if THEY should happen to be doing the judging, what would happen to me? YES, I would want mercy! I think of the story of Lazarus begging for mercy, just the mercy of a drop of water on a parched tongue... MERCY!

And so I've been thinking about mercy, particularly BEING MERCIFUL. Don't we have many occasions to be merciful? Perhap not in the usual sense of being a judge over someone else, but yes, it may still amount to being a judge! What about the scruffy-looking person standing on the street corner with a sign, "No job, anything helps, God bless." Don't we judge that guy every time we see him, especially if we avoid looking at him so he can't see that we see him?

I really have appreciated the JustFaith program I'm in this year (see earlier post). So I made the decision -- this is my MERCY coming through. I'm keeping an envelope in my car with a few one-dollar bills in it. Whenever I see one of those guys (they're mostly guys, aren't they? But not all, though) on the corner, I'm just going to give them a dollar, and my good wishes to boot. And why not? Why not indeed? First, I have the money -- I don't meet so many people like this that I can't afford to give EVERY guy on the corner a buck -- it is NOT going to amount to more than, say, $20 a month at the very most! Second, while I don't know how it will be spent, even if it winds up going to an alcohol or other addiction, I know they need it more than I do. This is not some lucrative scam they've got going... I'd NEVER want to change places with them. So isn't that part of what being MERCIFUL is about, regarding their condition in this life? And third, I really want to be free to look those folks in the eye... I really want to say that I wish them well, and mean it. I can still give to plenty of other charities, but from now on I really want to be able to be my usual cheerful self even when I meet a street beggar. Maybe even especially then. There but for the grace of God go I.