Feb 23, 2010: Fr. Miles Walsh - Divine Mercy Novena

God's Greatest Attribute is Mercy

Fr. Miles Walsh, Pastor of Our Lady of Mercy

You may have noticed in this week’s bulletin that the topic of our reflection for this third night of our Divine Mercy Novena is: Mercy, God’s greatest attribute. During this fifth year of our Divine Mercy Novena, Fr. Paul and I are taking turns preaching on nine themes relating to the message of Divine Mercy; those nine themes, in turn, have been chosen from a series of talks given by Dr. Robert Stackpole, who is the director of the John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, MA. Tonight I’d like to take up where Fr. Paul left off last week, when he preached on the message of Divine Mercy as it is revealed in the OT, in the Book of Genesis, at the very dawn of salvation history. Fr. Paul made the point that while the Mercy of God is not as clearly revealed in the OT, as it is in the New, when God sent His Son into the world to reveal His Mercy in a way that exceeded all of mankind’s hopes, expectations, and desires...nevertheless the message of Divine Mercy is indeed present in the book of Genesis and the other books of the OT. In fact, contrary to the belief in some quarters that the God of the OT is a stern Judge, who punishes man’s sinfulness with justice but without mercy, if you examine the account of our first parents’ sin, you see that God acts with justice but also with tenderness and mercy. E.g., when Adam and Eve sinned and immediately became ashamed of their nakedness and tried to hide from God, the Lord sought them out and fashioned leather garments for them, so they would not be so ashamed (Gen. 3:21.) And even though he sadly told them that their sin would bring about the inevitable consequence He had warned them of–namely, exile from paradise and the curse of death–God also promised in Gen. 3:15 to send a Savior who would redeem mankind from sin and death. In that verse of Scripture, God says to Satan, the tempter of man: I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers. He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel. This verse, which is known as the proto-evangelium, or the first announcement of the Good News, is also the first proclamation of Divine Mercy, which will one day be fully revealed in Jesus Christ.

Speaking about the mercy of God revealed in Genesis, Fr. Paul left us with a quote from St. Faustina’s diary in which Our Lord Jesus compares the soul of the one who comes to Him with a contrite heart, with a heart filled with sorrow for sin but a heart also filled with trust in his Mercy, to a little child who knocks at a door, trembling and in tears, asking for a piece of bread, lest he or she die of starvation. When Jesus asked Faustina what she would do in such a situation, she responded, I would give that child not only a piece of bread but a thousand times more. And Jesus promised her, That is how I treat your soul. And He promises that He will pour out His mercy upon any soul who comes to Him with a humble, trusting and contrite heart, asking for His mercy. He will give us a thousand times more than we ask.

In fact, no less an authority than Pope John Paul II wrote in his encyclical, God is rich in Mercy, that God’s mercy is his greatest attribute, and in this affirmation, he is joined by both St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. That affirmation, by the way, brings up a philosophical problem. According to our Catholic theological tradition, God is, by definition, the only infinitely perfect Being. His goodness, His power, His wisdom, His mercy, and His love are all simply names or descriptions of God, and because God is both simple and infinitely perfect in being, then theoretically, one attribute of God cannot exceed another in perfection. If God is infinitely perfect, how can His Mercy be more perfect ...than His Wisdom, His Justice, His Goodness, or Power? Does perfection admit degrees? And the answer is: God’s Mercy is His greatest attribute in this sense–it is the expression of God’s perfection specifically for us! Mercy is his greatest attribute for us! (Let me explain.)

St. John tells us that God is Love. God is, was, and ever will be eternal love even apart from our being. If God had chosen to not to create us, if he had never created the universe in which we live, He would still be eternally perfect in His love, His wisdom, His goodness, and His power, but there would be no Mercy in Him because there would be no need for Mercy. From all eternity, God the Father loves the Son, and the love between Father and Son generates the Holy Spirit. Yet because there is no sinfulness or lack of love in God, the Father does not need to be merciful to the Son or to the Holy Spirit, nor do the Son and Holy Spirit need to extend mercy to the Father or to one another. The Mercy of God is only expressed in relationship to us, because we need it, because we would perish without it. Without us in the picture, God would still be all-good, just, wise, powerful and loving within Himself, within the communion of three divine Persons we call the Holy Trinity. Yet once we come upon the scene, finite and sinful creatures that we are, we need a God who is not only just and loving, but a God who is Merciful as well. Even in the very act of creating us, God acts mercifully, by bringing us out of nothingness into existence. And once we had sinned, God acted in an even more merciful way by sending His Son to suffer, die and rise for our salvation. That’s why we human beings can say the Mercy of God is His greatest attribute, because in the Incarnation of Christ He literally becomes Mercy for us!

I don’t know about you, but that humbles me in a profound way, and it also assures me that I can trust in Him. No wonder God wants us to trust in His Mercy–He has become Mercy for us. No wonder He has told us to become like the little child begging for a crust of bread and to pray with utter confidence: Jesus, I trust in You!