Thursday, January 18, 2018


THE MERCY OF CHRIST
The All-Merciful Christ

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How will our Divine Lord welcome a heart returning to Him contrite for past disorders and humbled at the prospects of His Justice? With a Compassion befitting the great and merciful God that He is. When the Son of God came down to earth –tanquam sponsus procédens de thálamo suo– from the brightness of His Glory to the obscurity of the Virgin’s Womb, His Divine Immensity “dwindled to human infancy,” He seems to be in a hurry to divest Himself before our eyes of the mantle of His Sovereign Majesty. He speeds to earth, not with thunder and lightnings, not to open the sluices of the ocean—for Sinai and the Deluge were not so effective!... He comes to earth in search, not of the pure and noble remnant of our race, not to a hidden Noe or a persecuted Elias; He comes in search of sinners: “I came not to call the just, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32); “Christ came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15).
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John the Baptist, the last of the prophets of the Old Covenant, was a second Elias filled with the idea that the Messiah was to come to avenge; One whose axe was put to the root of the tree, Whose winnowing-fan was ready to purge the threshing-floor clean in order to gather the wheat and consume the chaff in unquenchable fire. But no sooner does he set eyes on Jesus than his mind seems to undergo an abrupt change. Who would have imagined that those very lips, which had been preaching punishment and austere penance, would suddenly break out into an expression of the utmost tenderness?
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“Behold the Lamb of God! Behold Him Who taketh away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) – From the rock flowed honey …  
 
The idea launched by the Precursor was well confirmed by Jesus in His actions, His sayings, and His parables. Why not search for them by reading the Gospel? What repentant sinner ever went to Him and was not welcomed with a thrill of fatherly emotion?
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Now it is a woman caught in the act of adultery whom His Mercy shields from the shower of stones prescribed by the implacable Law, and on whom He imposes no other penalty than to allow her penitential future to be steeped in the ineffable sweetness of His parting words: “Neither will I condemn thee; go, and now sin no more” (John 8:2). Now it is the woman notorious for her light conduct, who in anxious fear takes refuge under the shadow of His compassion, and finds herself rehabilitation, and is defended from her accusers by the irresistible eloquence of the Divine Word. Now it is the publican, a public swindler, whom Jesus goes out of His way to meet and welcome an invitation from; the man who receives Jesus with the fragrant kiss of fourfold restitution for any ill-gotten gains.
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Now it is the good thief, who with three words from a cross next to Thine, O Jesus, steals away Thy very Heart, Thy Forgiveness, and Thy Father’s Kingdom… closed until then even to the Just! Prodigious Mercy Thine that would be accompanied, on Thy entry into the Kingdom, by a criminal executed on the public gallows, as if he were Thy knight-companion!
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“I say to you that even so there shall be joy in heaven upon one sinner that doth penance” (Luke 15:7).
 
The sweetness of these words could melt a heart of stone. They are, dear Lord, the refrain closing those three magnificent stanzas of Chapter 15 of Saint Luke –the sinner’s chapter– wherein, O Sovereign Troubadour of Heaven, Thou hast sung the praises of Thy Eternal Pity!
 
How could I so much as dream that my poor soul’s return to Thee had power to move Thee so deeply, to produce in Thee such intense delight, as to rally all Heaven together to join with Thee in festive thrill and cheer?
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How shall I, who have given Thee so much displeasure throughout my long sinful life, refuse Thee at least this moment of delight? My sincere conversion will be a festive occasion not only for Thee, but for all Thy Angels and Saints as well!  
 
Have words ever sprung from Christ’s lips so revealing of His Love for us? Do I not grasp their meaning? Or do I fail to understand what it is to love?
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Taken from The Priest at Prayer by Fr. Eugenio Escribano (1954)


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