The Meaning of Mercy

Of all the correspondence compiled by St. Paul documenting salvation through the Event of Jesus Christ—who alone set about redeeming us all because in Adam’s fall we sinned all—the Epistle to the Romans is clearly the lengthiest of them all. It is also the most impressive, easily eclipsing everything else he wrote. “An alpine peak towering over hills and villages,” is how one admiring exegete put it, “offering a breathtaking theological and spiritual vision.”

Composed in Corinth a quarter century following the death of Christ, the Crucified God on whom the world’s salvation depends, it will reach Rome ten years before his own death, destined to take place in the year 67 by order of the Emperor Nero, a figure of spectacular cruelty and corruption. Accordingly, Paul’s last days are spent under close house arrest where, in a final letter to his beloved disciple Timothy, urging him to stand firm in the faith, he entreats him to come visit. “Do your best to come before winter,” he requests.  

Alas, it is not to be. And so, settling his account with the world he will shortly take leave of, Paul writes movingly on the little time he has left, placing it all in the hands of the God he has served with such passion and conviction all his life. “As for me,” he tells his young friend, 

my life is already being poured out like a libation—the time of my departure is imminent. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but all those who have longed for his appearance. (2 Timothy 4:6-8)

If one were to ask how was it possible for Paul to speak with such certitude and confidence, indeed to do so on the very cusp of certain and violent death, the answer can be found in the very pages of the Letter, which, even as he is about to lose his head, circulates among the Christians living in Rome, who, like Paul himself, will draw no end of strength and consolation from its inspired message.

And what is that message? Perhaps a glimpse into chapter eight, which opens vistas of divine-human possibility as vast as anything to be found in the Pauline corpus, will tell us. For it is there that the great theme of the Christian life is struck like granite. Indeed, it leaps right off the page. And that is the fact—not theory or supposition—that in Christ Jesus the ultimate victory of God’s love for the world is realized. 

The eternal vindication of that love is established once for all in the pierced and crucified Son who bears away the world’s sin. That in venturing everything, including even His descent into the depths of hellish desolation in search of souls, He will not be disappointed. The Strong Man with whom He wrestles will be utterly vanquished, thus releasing so many captive souls languishing in the darkness. In short, a promised future consisting of definitive deliverance from sin and death, darkness and the devil, will be the destiny awaiting us all. In short, a promised future consisting of definitive deliverance from sin and death, darkness and the devil, will be the destiny awaiting us all. So long as we evince a real willingness to…submit our wills in conformity to Christ.Tweet This

So long, that is, as we evince a real willingness to accept so stupendous an offer, submitting our wills in loving conformity to Christ, the pattern of whose life we remain free, terrifyingly free, to refuse, rejecting the very reason for which we were created. Such is the meaning of divine mercy. Such is the theme set down in the eighth chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Romans. It is nothing less than the triumph of the Justice and Truth of Almighty God, the sheer unending stream of whose Mercy became concretely incarnate in a Person bearing a unique and unrepeatable name, Jesus the Christ.  

What else are we asked to celebrate in this week’s event of Divine Mercy Sunday? In a profound and beautiful meditation on this text written by Adrienne von Speyr, Christ is shown as the one whose hunger for souls is so great, so inclusive of every creature on earth, that “even the last human being in the basket of creation” qualifies as a candidate for admission into the Kingdom. The title of her little book, scarcely more than a hundred pages, says it all: The Victory of Love. 

Even the least prepossessing among us, in other words, shall know the surpassing love of God. No one, however unrecognizable he or she may be owing to their sin, will be shown the door. Unless, of course, by sheer obduracy of heart they insist on slamming it shut themselves. The offer of salvation remains universal. It is not intended for the fastidious few who alone qualify for admission into the Kingdom. “When Paul speaks of the elect,” she tells us, 

he means definite individuals. He sees before his eyes the image of the disciples who followed the Lord: they are types and models, the central light falls on them. That this light falls from them on to others, is brought by them to others, is a new truth not excluded but included in the first.

How many will be saved? Can we put a number on the elect? “The number itself,” she reminds us, “is the Son’s secret. It could be that the Father means ‘many’ and that, to speak in a human way, he allows himself to be surprised by the work of the Son who demands ‘all.’ Little Therese,” she adds, “‘chose all’ when she was offered a basketful of things to choose from. She chose not only what was beautiful but also the unattractive,” thus imitating the attitude of Christ Himself, who will neither weaken nor withdraw His attention from anyone whom the Father has made. 

Not even the least in the Kingdom are to be barred from entering the precincts of eternal felicity. If they wish to come in, if by the choices they have made to reciprocate His offer of love, they will not be turned away. His love remains not just constant but all-consuming, so long as we do not try and throw up barriers to prevent it from reaching into the soul of every creature who bears the image of the Creator. We must not limit the reach of the Son’s work of reclaiming a world seemingly lost in sin. 

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” asks Paul in the final lines of the chapter. “Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” (8:35). “For I am sure,” declares Paul at the very end of his sustained trumpet blast, 

that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (8:38-39)   

How precious we must be in the sight of God that He should send His very own Son to suffer and die in our place, thus enabling us, upon the very wings of divine mercy, to enter into a place long prepared for us—who only know because we are known, who only love because God has first loved us.