Homily for Monday, 2 March 2015‒ Monday of the Second Week of Lent

Readings of the day: Daniel 9:4b-10; Psalm 79:8, 9, 11, 13; Luke 6:36-38

What is mercy? Have we heard it said, or even thought or said ourselves, that our world; our society perhaps especially, is losing a sense of sin? More importantly maybe, is our culture not lacking in a sense of mercy, both the mercy of God and in a taking to heart of our own calling to “be merciful”?

Our Gospel reading today from Luke renews for us this Christian calling, “Be merciful as your Father is merciful.” But then does not our Gospel reading confuse us with Jesus’ next words: “Stop judging and you will not be judged”? Has this prohibition of “judging” not too often been extended to reluctance in our society to hold one another accountable if need be; as an excuse for moral relativism in which we ought not to judge another’s actions or cultural tendencies as right or wrong at any cost? This kind of relativism is both morally and logically untenable. We make moral judgments all the time, I hope, as is right and human for us to do.

I only hope (and have confidence that at least most of us do) that we hold ourselves to the same moral standards, not more lenient or severe, as we hold other people. From time to time, I hear the symptoms of the evil twins of laxity, when some are too lenient with themselves (“Do I really need to pray to overcome this sin, or even confess it sacramentally?), and scrupulosity, when some are too harsh with themselves, thinking that almost all they do is sin.

Both laxity and scrupulosity are failures to recognize not so much sin as mercy. God is eternally merciful. Pope Francis says, “God never tires of forgiving us”; we sometimes “tire of asking God for forgiveness.” Let us not “tire of asking God” and one another “for forgiveness” as needed! But let us acknowledge God’s mercy and grace at work in most of our actions, even those that do not result in the good that we sincerely intend. After all, God did not create us as bad or sinful, but good; in God’s own image and likeness. To think otherwise is heresy. Even more, it is an illness from which I pray that those afflicted may be healed.

“Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.” I do not think that most of us, or most of our society, have a problem with condemning. We have a healthy aversion in our society, I think, to condemnation. And again, God is not a condemning God with a ledger up in heaven to keep score of our right and wrong actions, but a God of mercy; a God of forgiveness.

But do we not still hear, in dealing with people who are troublesome to us, “Kill them with kindness”? This phrase also deviates from Jesus’ invitation, “Be merciful.” Kill them with kindness? No! Give them life by our loving kindness; by our mercy that is God’s gift, to the point that forgiveness hurts us; is a cross for us; is “Spirit and life” for us!

“Give and gifts will be given to” us in abundance: Kindness; mercy… “Be merciful,” then, “as [our] Father is merciful.”