I have chosen this image
because of the uniqueness of the guy showing mercy in that portrait. In my
understanding, that fellow looks as deserving of the very goodness he gives to
the other yet he gives out when he doesn't have enough. How foolish right? But isn’t it basic "Humane Intelligence" to share goodness with others rather than keeping it all to ourselves? In the corporate world today, the use of Humane Intelligence (HI) is fast developing and it ensures that proper moral conscience demands that humans do what is right and just for the collective benefit of everyone in the work place rather than impartial forms of sharing benefits. If people of the world in their working environments can develop such a concept, how much more should we who are children of God be challenged to do beyond the attitude of this concept of equity and justice by being heralds of Love and Mercy. I mean if our human nature would aspire to this, then our divine nature must be provoked to the call.
Many at times, we do these random acts of
kindness as a means to show mercy on others because it is compelling of human
nature. Mercy is one of God’s greatest gifts to mankind. Humans
desire to be fixed and released from all suffering and in our saddest and most
needy moments we contritely ask for His mercy. The Divine Mercy of God is
God himself giving you his very power which is the power to heal both body and
soul. In the gospels, we hear so many times of how people who are in need of
this healing grace from God cry out to Our Lord, “…Son of David, Have Mercy on me”
[Luke 18:38]. God’s mercy heals us of our afflictions and forgives us of our
sins. As children of God, we have been thought by our Lord to always pray for
the Father’s mercy because we know that we ourselves who live in the beatitude
have been merciful to many: “Forgive us our wrongs as we have forgiven
those who have wronged us”. Our wrongs will be forgiven because Our Lord remembers and He is faithful to his promises.
The most powerful portrayal
of mercy is in forgiveness. The world we live in exposes us to a lot of people
who offend us and get on our nerves. Some even threaten our peace. The wisdom
of this world would advise that you ignore these offenses and just put off/away
those people. The reality is, such actions never solve the world’s problems. In
ignoring we give room for another to become a victim of more suffering and
evil. Even God has shown us that getting rid of evil wasn’t solved by trying to
get rid of the evil people in the world, but rather it was better solved by
forgiving humans over and over and over again, even to the point of offering
His very own Divine blood as the price for Mercy in order to save the world
from itself (now this is a mystery of the Christian Faith that I do not wish to
delve into for the sake of trying to make this post short).
Mahatma Gandhi once said “The
weak cannot forgive… forgiveness is for the strong”. This is a very
strong saying. I remember the day I urged the love of my life to be strong
enough to forgive me. I’ll never forget her honesty that day as she said “I am
no longer strong enough”. I pray every day for God to make her strong.
Only God forgives people and as often as we proclaim we are His children we
must pray for the strength to be like him to be able to forgive those who have hurt us, and more heroically when they are neither “remorseful” nor “repentant”. It's our divine duty to forgive them totally anyway!
Remember the parable of the Merciful Father or the
prodigal son as many know it? Of how the Father’s mercy was total and
infinitely perfect to the point of reinstating the son-ship to a son who had
been undeserving of being called a son. Forgiveness can only be true when it
has been totally perfected and all the blessedness of the Divine Mercy can be
seen through and through. Let us pray for the grace to live as though our very
lives were a fountain of mercy pouring out into the world because Mercy is the only
solution to pain and suffering and it demands the most of us even when we
ourselves are not strong enough to be merciful.
“O the
blessedness of the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy” [Matt
V:7]
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