Flora Cantábrica

The attitude of Mercy 7.11.21

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The attitude of Mercy

The word trust in the school of spirituality of Saint Sister Faustina defines man’s relationship with God, while the word mercy characterizes relationships between human beings, which have their source, model and cause in the merciful love of God. Jesus said to Sister Faustina: I demand of you works of mercy that must arise out of love for me. You must show mercy to your neighbor always and everywhere. You cannot stop doing it, or excuse yourself, or justify yourself. I give you three ways to exercise mercy to your neighbor: the first – the action, the second – the word, the third – the prayer In these three forms the fullness of mercy is contained and it is the irrefutable testimony of love towards me. In this way the soul praises and adores my mercy (Diary 742).

In our time many false notions of mercy operate, often identified with indulgence, compassion and the elimination of justice. It is worthwhile, therefore, to present an adequate and in-depth idea of ​​mercy that Sister Faustina had. For her, human mercy is very closely related to God’s mercy, therefore it is based on objective truth – the word of God; It supposes the fulfillment of the demands of justice that is the fundamental measure of love and bears fruit in a concrete action. Mercy is the flower of love (Diary 651) or an action of love (Diary 651) – wrote Sister Faustina. Her life and her writings show that, exercising mercy to others, one must take into account, first of all, the dignity of the man in need and then his bodily and spiritual needs. The dignity of man, given by God, already by virtue of creation and redemption, is a common value of the needy and the person who does good. Seeing in the person in need this dignity given by God and highlighted by Christ is of fundamental importance in practicing mercy and is what differentiates the personalistic school of mercy of Saint Sister Faustina from other models that exist in the history of the Church.

Thus understood, mercy that has its source, model and cause in God and focuses on the dignity of man, for Sister Faustina was a way of life. It is not, therefore, only sporadic or occasional acts of mercy towards those in need, but rather a Christian attitude towards another person, in all its dimensions, an attitude guided by merciful love. I wish to transform myself entirely into your Mercy – prayed Sister Faustina – and to be a living reflection of you, oh Lord. May this greatest attribute of God, that is, his unfathomable mercy, pass through my heart to my neighbor (Diary 163). This transformation of life into mercy thus signifies a lifestyle and not just one trait among many others.

Sister Faustina was knowing and penetrating more and more deeply the merciful love of God and she experienced it. Thus, as a child, her attitude of trust in God grew and a burning desire was born to reflect this attribute of God in her own heart and in her actions. Each one of your saints – he prayed – reflects in himself one of your virtues, I wish to reflect your compassionate and merciful Heart, I wish to glorify it. May your mercy, oh Jesus, be imprinted on my heart and soul like a seal and this will be my distinctive sign in this life and in the next (Diary 1242).

In dictionaries and theology manuals we find the definition of love and apart from the definition of the virtue of mercy. Based on the teaching of Saint Thomas, Catholic theology defines love as a virtue that aims to increase the good of others, and mercy as a virtue that tries to eliminate the evil that torments him. The word Mercy – writes Saint Thomas – means to have a compassionate heart for the misery of another. So, according to St. Thomas, what differentiates love from mercy is the objective: love aspires to increase good and mercy to remedy evil. In traditional theology, mercy is one of the moral virtues. Among all the virtues that refer to one’s neighbor – Dr. Angelico wrote – the most excellent is mercy, because helping the deficiencies of the other is in itself a greater and better thing.

The Holy Father John Paul II, in the encyclical «Dives in misericordia» sheds a new light on the very notion of mercy. According to him, mercy is not only a virtue, but an attitude that supposes the existence of a set of moral capacities, the first of which is this creative love that does not allow itself to be overcome by evil but rather overcomes evil with good.

Precisely this same approach to mercy appears in the spirituality of Saint Sister Faustina. It is not, then, a question of one of the virtues, but of an attitude of life in all its dimensions before another person, an attitude composed of a set of moral capacities. When defining mercy, Sister Faustina said that love is the flower and mercy is the fruit (Diary 949). In her writings, mercy is an attitude that encompasses all relationships with others, it must penetrate and characterize each contact with another person, each action, thought and word. Therefore, with the help of grace, she wanted to transform herself into mercy (Diary 163) and in her prayer she asked that her eyes, ears, tongue, hands, feet and above all her heart be merciful (Diary 163) ).

In the school of Saint Sister Faustina, mercy means an attitude of life in all dimensions before the neighbor, an attitude in which the supernatural virtue of love plays the main creative role. These virtues impel to love God in man and man in God. That is why the attitude of mercy can be attributed the characteristics with which Saint Peter defines love. Paraphrasing his hymn to love from the First Letter to the Corinthians, we can say that: mercy is patient, benign, not envious, not boastful, not puffed up with pride… (1 Cor 13, 1-7).

The ardent love of God – he wrote in the Diary – incessantly sees the need to give himself to others with action, word and prayer (Diary 1313). This incessant giving to others, in the life of Sister Faustina was applied, above all, to the spiritual needs of the man who has lost himself, who has lost the meaning of life, has deviated from the path of salvation. The love of souls led Sister Faustina to offer herself as a victim. As she deeply knew the value of the human soul that is immortal, she particularly helped those who were threatened by the loss of salvation.

The close connection between the mystery of God’s mercy and human mercy should be especially emphasized. According to Sister Faustina, the attitude of mercy before the neighbor has its source, it is born and springs from the mystery of God’s mercy, and in him it also has its cause in the dimension of both model and action.

The Lord Jesus – Incarnate Mercy, was for Sister Faustina the model to practice mercy. From Jesus I learn to be Good she – she wrote – she so that she can be called the daughter of the Heavenly Father (Diary 669). The example of Jesus, of whom his contemporaries said that he had walked the earth doing good to all and the example that Jesus gave by bending over the sick of the soul, over the sinner, even offering himself as a victim on the cross, was for her the unattainable model. In difficult moments, when she did not know how to behave before her neighbor, she asked what Jesus would have done in her place. Sister Faustina’s description of an encounter with a lay person who abused her goodness perfectly reflects how she imitated the example of Jesus. As soon as I saw her – she wrote – my blood ran cold in my veins, since what I had suffered because of her was presented before my eyes (…). And she crossed my mind the idea of ​​making him know the truth in a decisive and immediate way. But immediately Divine Mercy appeared before my eyes and I decided to behave as Jesus would have behaved in my place. I began to speak with her sweetly and, as she wanted to converse with me alone, I made her know clearly and in a delicate way, the sad state of her soul. I saw the deep shock of her (Diary 1694

n the life of Sister Faustina, God’s mercy is the foundation of the attitude of mercy towards others, both in the dimension of model and of action. According to her, it must be a certain participation in the mercy of God. Sister Faustina was aware that through her good works done out of love for Christ, she participated in this giving of God’s mercy to the world, because God uses men to show her goodness. He wanted, then, to transform himself into mercy, to be a living reflection of God’s mercy, so that this greatest attribute of God, that is, his unfathomable mercy, passes through his heart and soul to his neighbor (Diary 163). The Lord Jesus himself spoke to him of this relationship between human mercy and God’s mercy. You must know, my daughter – she taught at a conference on Mercy – that my Heart is Mercy itself (…). I want your heart to be the seat of mercy. I wish this mercy to be poured out over the whole world through your heart. Anyone who approaches you cannot leave without trusting in this mercy of mine that I so desire for souls (Diary 1777).

For the mercy practiced on another person to be a participation in the mercy of God, it has to be carried out in the spirit of Christ, that is why the Lord Jesus told Sister Faustina that her heart be the seat of His mercy and that mercy of Him will be poured out on the world through your heart. Well, here it is not a question of any natural charity or a philanthropy motivated by any reason, but of mercy practiced to others out of love for Jesus and in the spirit of Jesus. This requires looking at another person with the eyes of faith, as a creature created in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1,26), redeemed not with gold or silver, corruptible, but with the precious Blood of Christ ( 1 Pet 1, 18), as a child of God called to inherit the goods of the heavenly kingdom and to participate in the life of the Triune God and One. Sister Faustina exercised this attitude before others and the more it cost her to relate to someone, all the more he insisted on seeing in her Christ who exhorted us to practice mercy

Sister Faustina also saw the reciprocal dependence between the attitude of trust in God and the attitude of mercy towards others. She said that the fuller the trust in God, the more self-sacrificing and effective is the help of others. A word from a soul united to God – she wrote in the Diary – seeks more for souls than eloquent debates or preaching from an imperfect soul (Diary 1595). He knew perfectly well that in order to practice mercy in the spirit of Christ, one must live in union with him. To recognize him in others and serve him in them, one must first learn to live with him in his own soul (Diary 503). She also saw another relationship: I have known and experienced that souls that live in love are distinguished by great insight into the knowledge of divine things (Diary1191). This consequently leads to an attitude of fuller trust.

What has been said so far about trust and mercy in the school of spirituality of Saint Sister Faustina, shows that it is a question here of the very foundations of the Christian life. In the child’s attitude of trust in God and mercy before her neighbor, even offering herself as a victim, in the life of Sister Faustina the greatest commandment to love God and neighbor was perfectly carried out, that is, the very essence of Christianity. .