Be Merciful As Your Father in Heaven is Merciful

19th Sunday after Pentecost 

When I was a boy, my father had a friend who was a hard man.  I’m not saying that he was a bad man, just hard.  Life had been hard on him.  His younger brother had died after being struck by a car. And as a result of that, their mother became mentally unstable, and she spent years in a mental institution. He grew up being just like his father, a hard man. Never one to show compassion, he was not one to think of the other guy, except when the goals of the other guy were the same as his.  

In his seventies, he lost his wife to cancer.  And then he got cancer.  He spent his final months in a hospice run by Franciscan nuns. 

He told one of his nieces that in the hospice, it was the first time in his life that he felt loved.

Our Lord’s words in today’s Gospel are, “Be merciful, as your Father in heaven is merciful”. Those Franciscan nuns obeyed Him. And the fruit of that mercy was that this dying man, a man who had a hard life, this man who had a hard heart - he felt loved for the first time in his life.

Sometimes, though, it’s just difficult for us to be merciful. We let our emotions get in the way of doing what we should. We want vengeance. We want the other guy to pay for the evil he’s done. But what does Jesus say? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.  That’s just living out the Second Great Commandment - “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. And then he tells us, “Love your enemies and do good to them”.

Greek has three words meaning love. The first is eros (ἔρος). It’s where we get our word erotic, and it’s a love that’s associated with passion. Pope Benedict points out that it’s not just the love of a man for a woman, it’s also the love for music. It’s the love for the arts. It’s the love you have for anything that you’re passionate about.

The second type of love is philia (φιλία). It’s a feeling of affection, the love between friends.  It’s the Phila in Philadelphia, the city of Brotherly Love.

The third type is agape (ἀγάπη).  It’s a love that’s a choice, it’s an action, not a feeling.  When the Apostle John says “God is Love”, this is what he’s talking about.  In that great chapter on love in 1 Corinthians, “Love is gentle, love is kind”, that’s what Paul is talking about.  And when we are told to love our neighbor, to love each other, and to love God, it’s not eros, and it’s not philia.  It’s agape.

All of this answers the question of WHY we’re called to love.  But there’s still the question of HOW.

Our Prokeimenon points us in the right direction. “The Lord is my strength and my song of praise, and He has become my salvation”. The Lord will strengthen us to love. How do we tap into it, though?

In Romans, Paul tells us, “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect”. It’s our responsibility to do the work, and God will provide the grace to give the results.  

What are the steps?

First, pray.  Paul says, “Pray without ceasing”.  Make your life a prayer.  Practice the Corporal Works of Mercy and the Spiritual Works of Mercy – not as a work,  but as a prayer.  Pray set prayers like the Rosary. 

The next thing is reading the Bible. Read the weekly readings from your prayer book, “Hear Me, O Lord”. Read the Psalms & Proverbs. Meditating on them can reach deep into your soul. 

If you think you can’t understand, you’re not alone.  In Acts, we read the story of when Philip meets an Ethiopian Eunuch reading the book of Isaiah. Philip asked him if he understood what he was reading, and the eunuch replied, “How can I understand if nobody explains it?”. Of course, Philip explained it.  But what he realized is that sometimes we need an explanation.

Jesus promised the Apostles that the Holy Spirit would guide them into all truth.   And those Apostles became the first bishops.

That truth into which the Holy Spirit led them is the traditional understanding of scripture, of our faith.  Where do we find it? You can start with the Brief Catechism on page 10 of your prayerbook, “Hear Me, O Lord”.  From there, you can read the Catechism of the Catholic Church or our Ukrainian Catholic Catechism, “Christ Our Pascha”.

Take one of the Beatitudes each week and ask yourself how you can live it out in your daily life.

And then, as your mind is renewed, just make your actions reflect the faith that is forming your inner being. Show God’s love, God’s agape to all.

As our Lord tells us, “Your reward will be great. You will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked”.

Go, and take every opportunity to be merciful.