"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy."
Perhaps I will begin every one of these reflections with something like, "I know I said this last time, but this one must be my favorite." I just have to smile. Each one of these small "to-be-blessed" statements from Our Lord holds so much depth, heighth, fullness and freedom!
Very quickly I want to speak for a moment on what a "beatitude" even is. That probably should have come at the beginning, but here we are. The useful online dictionary defines this word as follows: "Supreme blessedness or happiness." What I take the Lord to mean here is that if one should choose to make these lessons a way of life, to take Jesus at his word, to believe fully in the truth he is, that person will inevitably inherit a fullness of life, both here on earth and in heaven after death. These are the sign posts on Imitation Road, where we can come to see the footprints of Jesus laid out before us, measure our feet against his... see how utterly impossible it is to fill those shoes, and then rejoice because he has given us a way to stand on his feet so that we can still walk with him on the journey. They direct us on how to stand on his feet, and how to balance when the road climbs up and dips down. As he is the truth and life, these are his way. They are aspects of his heart, chambers which we can enter into and learn from. Each is its own school and yet all work together to form the greater whole of a Christ-like life.
Now back to the merciful being blessed!
I cannot communicate, by any stretch or means, what the truth of mercy is. It is the active verb of love. God is love. Mercy is his action. Mercy encompasses every moment of our failure, our sin, our rejection, our hate of the one who has given us everything, and in that covering it not only washes all the sadness, hurt, brokenness and darkness away, but it brings newness as well.
The lines from this song help to reveal something of this truth:
"I give you my heart,
It was never mine at all.
So I don't mind if it breaks or falls,
You'll restore it to life after all.
Cause you never stop making us new,
More and more into the image of you."
Mercy is that we are alive. Mercy is that the world exists. Mercy is that we keep existing. Mercy is that I have been born into a family that loved me, that raised me to love the Lord, that provided for me, that was provided for by the Lord so that it could provide for me, that educated me in his ways, that enabled me to learn to read and write and to one day share some of that gift with you as you read this now. Mercy is everything. We do not have to have food, or clothes, or shoes, or a job, or a house, or a family. We do not have to have hope, or trust, or forgiveness, or joy, or peace, or excitement, or perseverence, or strength, or courage, or justice. We do not have to have life. We do not have to be. There could be nothingness. A lack. An absence. But the Lord, in his mercy, has filled it. There is. There are. We are.
Mercy is grace, it is love, it is truth. There is nothing more true than that God is love. There is also then nothing more true than that God is merciful, is mercy itself. Mercy, by definition, should be "the love of God poured out." That simple. The blood of Christ poured out during the Passion, the fire of the Holy Spirit poured out at Pentacost, the ever-present gift of being poured out from Our Father in heaven! Everything is a gift, everything is his mercy.
So what shall it mean for us to "be merciful as He is merciful"?
I suppose the cliche answer (yet, completely valid answer) is to be ever-forgiving, ever quick to charity, ever living love, ever pouring out ourselves and our hearts.
As a beatitude, I would dare to say, as they all are, that this is a disposition of the heart, soul and will. Charity, in its fullness. To be merciful and thus blessed in that mercy, we have to seek and pray to always be "unmindful should our hearts break or fall" because of our love and trust in our Father. I have heard it called "holy indifference," but what I mean to say is that if we could always see all of life, including our very being, as a gift of generous love, we would have this response that immediately shouted "well, here, take it! It isn't mine anyway!" How often we are quick to pick up the thing someone left lying on the subway, or on the sidewalk... finders keepers or even more basically just a "its there and I picked it up" mentality. Yet, that isn't yours, it isn't mine. If someone came up to you after you picked it up and said, "I'm sorry, I dropped that, it is mine," you would understand that you have no right to it and quickly return it to its owner. If nothing else, you'd be embarrassed that you were trying to keep what wasn't yours. This is life! This is how we are. Borrowed in the generosity of God. Kept in being by his merciful love that exceeds all time and place, force and motion. It isn't ours. One day, or perhaps everyday, he will say to us (often through a family member, friend or stranger), "excuse me, that is mine, may I have it back." We aren't always so quick to give it up.
Be merciful. Be of the disposition that what is yours, isn't yours, and what you've worked hard for is still not yours. You've received the drive to work hard. It's a gift that you wanted to work in the first place. Everything is His generous love! So give it back.
Forgive the annoying man whose armpit you are stuck in on the crowded subway... he's uncomfortable too. Forgive your brother when he is short tempered and blames you for something you didn't mean to do... he is hurting and needs to be understood! Forgive your teacher who says "um" between, um, every syllable and drives you nuts... he's been embarrassed by that for years and it is only in great humility that he continues to teach when he knows how students mock him. Forgive your boss who decided to belittle you at your staff meeting... even if there is no good reason for it that you can discover, your life is a gift and so you have to take confidence that the Lord will use both your embarrassment and his unkindness to better form both of you into his image.
It is that simple. Find a way to reasonably forgive, and if there isn't one, then seek the grace to forgive anyway. Jesus forgives us every time, and it is never reasonable. Jesus died, forgiving us. Who can truly say they would let others beat them, bruise and mock them, insult and punish them, even kill them, when they were innocent of all crime, and then as they were being killed, honestly and genuinely forgive them? It's impossible, but for the love of God, the Holy Spirit moving in our hearts. But the power of the Holy Spirit can be a rushing river, and it can create new channels in our hearts for mercy to flow through, and it can lift up the silt and grime that has piled up, and it can rinse us of our anger, our disdain, our pride, and leave us with clearn hearts.
I know that many would say to "be merciful" is more an "active" beatitude, that it refers to charity-in-practice, to social justice, to the poor and needy. By all means, the Lord does mean this! Yet, look at the example of Christ. Every person he heals, every miracle he performs, every life he changes in Scripture - it is not the bodily injury or ailment but the spiritual one, that of sin, that he first and foremost heals. It is forgiveness that precedes everything else. The healing of hearts, souls and wills in the merciful love of God enables all the other miracles to take place. How can we expect reconciliation among family members, or peace in the workplace, or comfort in our ministries, if we do not first come as bearers of God's mercy? The miracles are possible, but the mercy must be first.
The merciful are blessed because they recognize that life is not their own. They have peace because they let things go. They have joy because they realize that the grace to let go and forget is a gift given. They have more joy because they realize the grace to ask to have the grace to let go and forgive is a gift given. In this track they end up recognizing that nothing is ever of them, and yet they are always the center of God's loving action, as he moves and reforms their hearts so that they are an image of him in this world.
As I said, there aren't words. I repeat again that mercy is the active-verb of love. "To love" is to be merciful. To love is to forgive, time and again. To love is to never fear forgiveness being withheld from you, and to never leave others in fear of your forgiveness being withheld. Could this mean being taken advantage of? Walked upon? Perhaps. Do we take advantage of the Lord, and walk all over him? Absolutely we do. Does his love extend so far beyond our injuries against his love? He set up the giant trampoline long ago, and it is ready to catch us immediately. We'll land and be shot back up to him in an instant. It's almost fun, being forgiven. It buoys our spirits, leads us to rejoicing! So we can be so free with others. He will always supply the strength for us, always give us the courage to be more merciful than we think we could bear.
Love. Forgive. Never count the cost.
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