Can there be Charity without Mercy?

What exactly is "charity"? An idea? An action? A virtue? A disposition of the mind and heart?

Charity is all of those, and more. Charity can also be a way of life or a world-view. In fact, charity can be a state of being - and that is God. For as we know:

"God is love" 1 John 4:16.

If charity is love, and love charity, and God is love, than God is also charity.

But, echoing the Scriptures, who has ever seen God, but the Son, and those to whom the Son reveals the Father to?

So how are we to know what charity really is, or what it really means?

I have always found it very interesting that the Gospel of Matthew records the Sermon on the Mount ending with Jesus instructing us to "Be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect," (Matt 5:48) and the Gospel of Luke says in a similar fashion and yet differently, "Be merciful, just as [also] your Father is merciful" (Lk 6:36).

This is certainly insightful when it comes to contemplating what it means to be "charitable."

To "love" someone, to look at another in "charity" or with "charity," is to imitate our heavenly Father. We have been taught and believe that God is perfect. Yet, we know that we cannot be perfect, and certainly not in the same way that God is perfect, since he is infinite and beyond us even while he comes to us so intimately.

Certainly, this question has been raised often in the history of the Church - Lord, how are we to be "perfect"?

On of the first or most obvious answers is that we must be "merciful." The interchange found in the Gospels between "perfect" and "merciful" assists us in understanding that God's perfection, God's ultimate charity, the very being of the Blessed Trinity who is a Communion of Love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is a perfection and charity that is mercy.

Now, we have all heard that "the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom" (1 Cor 1:25) and "my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways" (Is 55:8). What is the context of these statements? St. Paul is speaking of the "paradox of the Cross," that the Son of God would become man and suffer and die for the sins of men so that we might have hope for eternal life. And Isaiah's passage states immediately before those words:
"Let the wicked forsake their way,

and sinners their thoughts;

Let them turn to the LORD to find mercy;

to our God, who is generous in forgiving." (Is 55:7)

The Lord has revealed that God's mercy is a mercy that can be surprising, sometimes even confusing, and often incongruent with what "human wisdom" might dictate. Yet, Sirach 2:18 says:

"Let us fall into the hands of the Lord

and not into the hands of mortals,

For equal to his majesty is his mercy;

and equal to his name are his works."

Here we should recognize that the glory and splendor that are proper to God who IS, cannot be separated from the mercy of God, which is both his wisdom and his works (charity).  We may often think of "justice" or "what is right" in a sense of retribution. We tend to have a sense that "every action has an equal and opposite reaction," and that this applies to all things, including human relationships and how we see and treat others. Retribution might seem like a term for someone who purposefully seeks revenge, or who goes to some length to "pay someone back" for an offense (such as trying to cause someone to lose his job, or making up falsehoods about someone so that she is disliked or unwelcome). Yet, the truth is that we often carry this type of attitude around with us in daily life, even when we may not realize it. Even small incidences of a friend who fails to show up for a meeting time, or a coworker who "drops the ball" and leaves you with all of the hard work, etc.. can bring us quickly to a point where we are at least hard-hearted toward that person for a while, if not that we desire to "return the favor" at some point. Even when we aren't acting out of revenge, per se, we might still have an attitude or disposition of vengeance. For example, perhaps later in the week that same friend tries to make up for the missed date by asking you to set up another time for meeting. Perhaps you agree, but then find that you have other things you might prefer to do when that meeting time comes. How quickly and easily we can justify calling that friend "apologetically" and saying that we cannot make it, and feeling very little guilt or remorse since it is "fair" considering that he or she did the same to us. Yet, if we paused to think about it, we should be all the more aware of how hurtful being stood-up can be, since it hurt us enough that we were upset with that friend. It is so silly, but we feel "justified."

This is what we can call "human wisdom," which is not God's wisdom. This is what we can understand as not God's justice, not the Lord's mercy, not our Father's charity, and not in line with the perfection that is Love, that is God.

Truly, I do not think that we can be charitable without also being merciful. There will always be things that we must forgive in one another. Even things that are in no way intentional or even personal choices, such as someone who might simply offend us because of body odor or because we find him or her unattractive. Perhaps we can keep in mind that while the cliche of "skin deep" can be no more than a cliche, it can also be a very real danger. If we see only what is on the outside, while our Father in heaven sees the whole person, especially the heart and soul, then can we really hope to be charitable if we are not also merciful, and merciful in the way that acknowledges just how similarly sinful we all are? We all share the common bond of humanity; and from that, we all share the fallen nature of sin, and even when we have received the great grace of Baptism, we still carry the concupiscence of our nature. Therefore, while there are many differences that set us apart from one another, there is also the common ground of being a sinful man before God, a creature who has failed and rebelled against his Creator. We all need mercy. We all stand in need of forgiveness, and a forgiveness that we cannot give to ourselves! Only the mercy, the charity, of the one who created us can heal us and restore us, can actually recreate us, can aid us in becoming more perfect. We must always keep in mind that if we should desire to love as God loves, and be perfect as our Father is perfect, than we must strive to be merciful as our Father is merciful.

May this last week of the Lenten season be a time for us to enter more deeply into that paradox of the Cross, into the mystery of the mercy of God. Perhaps we can receive the sacramental grace of Reconciliation, and find ourselves more intimately united with the wisdom of God that is always charity and mercy.

Mercy.

Too many thoughts have been dancing through (and colliding within) my mind, and at this point its fair to say the pinball machine is ready to break down.

My friends, mercy. Mercy, mercy, mercy! Divine mercy, real mercy, living and generous, form-taking mercy. Mercy alive and breathing. Mercy as a child. Mercy as a man. Mercy on a cross. Mercy as King.

I was reflecting on what true charity is. On the mountain that we all have to ascend to reach that unbelievable challenge uttered by Christ, "Be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect." That journey is uphill. That journey is full of sharp rocks and steep ascents. That journey is also filled with beautiful landscapes and invigorating experiences! Oh! The colors. The breaths of air that seem to have been saved for your lungs alone. The intoxicating scents of mountain air that teach you about a way of living that our little world has forgotten. You pant for more. Nothing ever tastes as sweet again. You are lost to it. These are woods you will happily wander into, map left behind, rejoicing at the idea of being lost. This is a trail your feet know without being told. This is a way that is clearly marked, simply by the desire in your heart. Follow the love inside of you! Run when you cannot bear to walk, and you will gain ground. Sing when you are stirred within, laugh at everything. Smile because it is too ridiculous not to.

Do not allow yourself to get over it. Never get over it. There is never room enough in you to exhaust all that you can take it! There will always be more beauties, more glories! Hans Urs von Balthasar says that glory is the fullness of beauty revealed. That means that glory is what you experience when your heart is too captivated to do anything else but adore what you have been captured by. And the mountain, the ascent to charity... it captivates. Not only the mountain, but the journey itself. Every step! Every breath. Every stone that digs into our feet. Every inch of dirt we move through. Every drop of rain or dancing stream or fierce wind or starry night or great oak. Not just these things in and of themselves, but our participation in them. Our encounter with them. Our harmonies to their symphonies. It is the moments of "them being" and "us coming to them" and "together, it being better." And forgive me for all the mountain imagery because this is just as applicable to the eyes of one meeting the eyes of another, or a still moment shared between old friends, or the explosion of a family reunited with one another (at least, that's the caliber of sound when my family is together), or the smile of teammates when the goal has been accomplished or the pride in a professor's eyes at the student who has excelled. All of this is what is part of our climb into the heights and depths of charity.

Today at mass the priest said, "Humility is not putting yourself down or thinking less of yourself, it is simply the truth." This is the epitome of true charity - mercy. The truth is our littleness, and the truth is also God's benevolence. The truth is our pitiful infidelity and the truth is his UNFAILING CONSTANCY. He is always there. Always. Never leaves us. Never gives up. Never ceases to love. Gosh! Do we have ANY idea of what the words "never" and "always" really mean? How could we? Look at our society, at our culture, at our world! Everything is so quick, so instantaneous, and sadly, so inconsistent. If there is any quality that is most endearing and most healing to me in the merciful love of God it is certainly his perfection made manifest in his unstobbable and eternal and infinite and constant being. Never means, never. There is simply no time, no space and no place that you could be that he will not already be there and will not follow you to. Just waiting to pick you up again, waiting carry you back home. "What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy and, upon his arrival home, he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them, 'Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep" (Lk. 15:4-6). And this is Mercy.

Who among us can turn to our brother after he has insulted us and genuinely love him, forgive him, even get up and make him something to eat because he is hungry? Who among us wouldn't consider this complete foolishness!? He didn't even apologize! He might do it again! Will he learn nothing? Are we to be so poorly treated? Oh, but was this not exactly the life of our Lord? Is this not the entire love story of the Scriptures, of the Hebrew people and God, of the Bride (the Church) and the Bridegroom? When have we ever given him true cause to lavish the grace upon us that he does? The justification that we could never earn for ourselves has been generously supplied by the life, death and resurrection of the Son of God. This is mercy. The truth is mercy. Humility is acknowledging the truth of the mercy of God.

Everything is mercy. The grace to have our hearts stirred by the beauty of the ascent to charity throughout our lives, even the sorrows and the darknesses and the freezing cold nights... that is mercy! The grace to see, that is mercy. Just to open our eyes is mercy; to have ears to hear, that too is mercy. He is embodied Mercy. Love made flesh is mercy. The Eucharist is Mercy.

Beatitudes, Part IV

Matt. 5:1-16

"Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied."

I would like to think this is one of the most unique and perhaps overlooked beatitudes. So often Christians/Catholics struggle with the issue of justice. We hear things that conflict often in this area, such as Scriptural references that insist not to live the mantra of "an eye for an eye" and yet also demonstrate Jesus acting in just anger by forcing the Pharisees out of the Temple when they have used it as a marketplace. Where does that leave us, the disciples?

Society usually enforces the "get what's yours" attitude along with the "it's your right" attitude. This trains us to be frustrated, annoyed, hurt, and angry when things we believe are our "due" are withheld from us or when others "deprive" us of something we feel we deserve.

Then there's St. Paul, that wonderful teacher, who so beautifully writes,
"Do not repay anyone evil for evil; be concerned for what is noble in the sight of all. If possible, on your part, live at peace with all. Beloved, do not look for revenge but leave room for the wrath; for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.' Rather, 'if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.' Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good." Romans 12:17-21

Here we face a frightening challenge - not only to learn to be less offended when we are put-out, but to turn around and love the person or situation that is causing us grief. Really, St. Paul? Can't you feel your eyebrows rising slowly higher and higher as you realize what living this command out means?

Let's take a few quick examples:
Your little brother steals your favorite anything (fill in most recent offense) and what do you do? Initial insticts say the following: tell on him (and enjoy his squirming under the scrutiny of mom or dad), go take it back (with force) and be sure he understands you are not happy, or perhaps, steal something of his that is of equal or greater value (war tactics) and do not relinquish it until your possession is returned with the interest of a humble apology or some other offering to appease your wasted time in punishing him.
Sound familiar?
You know this has been you. I know this has been me.

Perhaps something less obvious.
Public transportation (or even in your car in traffic) and you get jostled/bumped/roughly moved aside/edged out of your lane/the jerk didn't use a turn signal/the crazy driver is going 5 miles under the speed limit/etc... Who hasn't been tempted to rear end the slow guy? I know I've considered plenty how I could not be blamed for the accident. Who doesn't want to imitate Dane Cook's hilarity when they're bumped and say something "condescendingly nice" like, "oh, no problem," before they apologize (because they weren't going to)? You get the point.

Last example:
You are poor, you go to grad school (this may be a personal example, not making any promises...) and somehow all these other students in your class who are not as poor as you have scholarship money that is need-based. Wait a minute! You may not be good at math (and I'm terrible), but certain comparisons aren't that hard to make. Why are you taking out two loans and they aren't? Who's in charge here?!

I think the point is clear. In the practical life-lessons of the daily grind, we find ourselves tired, hungry, over-heated, uncomfortable, maybe a little sick, suffering in some capacity, and even if everyone else is too, we're still entitled to feel good. So what do we do? Well, we're angry, at life, then at everyone else. Maybe at ourselves too. So we're a little short-tempered, and we might lose patience faster than usual. "Charity" isn't the book we're reaching up to take off the shelf. It's more akin to "How-to-make-someone-suffer-without-being-caught."

I'm not saying our "excuses" aren't legitimate. They are. We do get worn out. Our nerves are raw. We all need more rest, more peace, more quiet, more stillness, more sitting-in-the-rain-and-letting-life-be-still, more fireplaces with someone we love, more smiles, more laughter, more children-who-are-adorable-bringing-us-joy, more hope, more silliness, more... more generosity.

Welcome to how this is all going to be explained.

Generosity.

The Prayer of St. Francis is perfect here (and anywhere, really):
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.


When we allow charity to come into our hearts and make its dwelling place there, we discover a fountain of goodness that we had no idea was inside of us. The beautiful gift of God is that this fountain truly is always present in us (as the Holy Spirit is always with us), and we need only seek the Lord's mercy and grace to bring the waters flowing into our hearts and out into our actions, words, thoughts and prayers. I think of St. Bernadette who discovered the fountain of water below the dirt where she was told to dig. Embarrassed and mocked for her actions, this young woman so full of faith was able to bring to the world immesureable miracles through her seeking God's will and allowing him to bring the waters flowing, in her life quite literally. We can all share in healing waters coming into our souls and our world when we go to him who has said very frankly, "Jesus stood up and exclaimed, 'Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture says: 'Rivers of living water will flow from within him.' He said this in reference to the Spirit that those who came to believe in him were to receive." - John 7:38-39
 
So the first step of being a Christian who hungers and thirsts for righteousness is to be one who hungers and thirsts for charity, for generosity, for the Holy Spirit, for mercy and forgiveness, for purity of heart, for truth.
 
When these become the dominating themes of one's thoughts and desires, even when we are attacked (physically and spiritually) in the subway or by our families or in our places of work, we will confidently know where to turn. Just a few moments of quiet and stillness, just a quick prayer of peace, a deep breath of the Holy Spirit can return our hearts to the worship they were made for, the Lord's will, and away from our own angry or hurt dispositions.
 
On the more spiritual plane, I think it is fair to say that when we hunger and thirst for righteousness we seek the Truth above all else.
This truth, we expect and mean to be the Lord's will, in our lives and in the world. Whether our decisions are to eat a meal or to date someone, to apply to a school or to call an old friend, big or small, effecting only ourselves or many, they need to be placed first before Jesus. Truly.
 
I do not mean that we should be overly scrupulous and need to pray, "Lord, should I be reading this blog now?!" (He'd probably say yes, though). What I mean is that when we place our hearts before him and our wills and our bodies before him and we say (everyday) - these are yours, Jesus. I am yours. This life that I have, it is yours. I am your child. Save me, care for me, instruct me, hold me, guide me, love me. I am your servant. Send me, inform me, enlighten me, use me as you will. I am your lover. Lead me deeper into love with you today. With Our Lady we can say simply, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, may it be it done to me according to your word" (Lk. 1:38).
 
Then, with a heart disposed to belong to a lover and King who has condescended to love us purely and fully forever, we will find that each decision we face will inevitably belong to him as well. He will guide our wills and hearts. We can trust our hearts, because they are his. So we can move through life in confidence and hope, because we hunger and thirst for his satisfaction, for his pleasure, for his joy. These are fulfilled when we love him. When we believe in his love, so much that no sin or failure will ever keep us from him, because we will believe in his mercy and forgiveness above all else. So our hope will ever motivate us to seek him, to seek Truth, to know it and follow it, to proclaim it and live it. To witness to truth. To teach the truth.
 
Let us pray that our understanding of what righteousness is will ever be the wisdom of the Lord, and that our hunger for it will ever be satisfied as we place our trust in him.
Amen.