Justice and Mercy

The three mercy parables of this Sunday, as also some facts happen recently in my life make me think about the divine justice and mercy, and how apply that to our quotidian life.

Many times, God beeing merciful and just can seem contradictory for us, but God’s logic is not the same than ours. Actually, in God, mercy and justice doesn’t contradize but justify themselves: the divine mercy is a logical consequence of his justice.

The byzantine art represents these complementarities by the icon just in side. This icon shows us two Christ’s side-faces. In the left one, we contemplate the merciful Christ’s compassion by the regretting sinner. In the right one we see in the picture the terrible judge’s anger requiring the same sinner to change his life and to convert.

Just as God, we will be able to be merciful just in the moment we become just; because the only one can forgive the evil against him is who is able to distinguish good and evil.

The justice consists in give to someone which is his right, but mercy is to give to someone in abundance, more than his merit. If we don’t recognize the merit of someone, how could we give him more than his merit? If we don’t know our own merit, how could we know which is unjust for us? I’m sure, and I affirm: If someone forgives an injustice against him being himself unjust against the others, this is not mercy but hypocrisy!

Anger and Love

In the same way as justice doesn’t opposite to mercy, Anger doesn’t opposite love, actually Anger is a consequence of love, and it can be a fundamental tool to teach mercy to our brothers.

How saind by the doctors of the Church, the anger is like a watchdog keeping our souls against the sins and the injustice. We must release it against the souls thief, the demon, not against the visitors. We must hate the sins as we love God, and love sinners by the same way as we hate their sins.

Be in angry with the injustice and the sin is a quality of a fair man, but be in angry with the sinner is a great signal of no mercy.

Mercy in Latin (misericordiae = miseria + cordiae = misery + heart), means accept the misery with the heart. Then, mercy consists in loving our brothers despite their miseries. The worst human misery is the sin, so to be merciful we need to love the neighbor is spite of we hate his sins. This is the way God loves us and has mercy on us with no prejudice to his justice.

Advertisement