Hello, Church fans! Okay, okay, I have been very bad about posting consistently. But hey, the life of a priest is great and rewarding…and sometimes it gets a bit busy around here on Sundays during the time I set aside to do this. If you ever want to see a vid of the homily, simply go to our parish YouTube page by clicking here. The whole Mass is posted almost immediately, the homily vid comes out on Monday when our resident technomancer comes in the office. Anyhoo, thanks for stopping by. Enjoy.
I’m at that stage in life where my nieces and nephews now have nieces and nephews, as well as their own kids. As you may experience when you visit our amazing school, (and you should, even if you don’t have kids in it!), children go through certain phases of development regarding fairness. By fifteen to nineteen months children will notice unequal sharing. By age three they understand the rules of fairness and will be very vocal in protesting when such norms are broken…yet they still hoard their toys. From age four to seven, they will strongly object when they get less than someone else. This is when you will hear the shouted phrase: “THAT’S NOT FAIR!” Ironically, at this stage they still delight when they get more than another. However, by eight years old, they understand and concepts of fairness and sharing and put them into practice. Finally, by age 10, they will begin to practice true altruism and charity. While this happens incidentally in the rest of the world, such behavior is taught and reinforced daily in our parish school where we “provide an excellent Catholic education in a Christ-like environment.”
In thinking of such things, it is important to make an important distinction between ‘justice’ and ‘mercy.’ Justice in the classic sense is to “give to each as he or she deserves.” Justice involves rights and responsibilities. For example, the life and dignity of the human person is something owed to everyone in justice. The founding fathers of our country enshrined such dignity when they states, “We hold such to truths be self evident…that all are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights…” Justice also involves the reparation of and restoration of rights when they have been violated. This is why we have criminal and civil justice systems.
Mercy is something special. Mercy acknowledges the demands of justice, but goes beyond them to achieve a greater good than justice could accomplish alone. There is no greater example of this than the passion, death and resurrection of Christ. The price for sin is death. This is the demand of justice, and it needed and continues to need to be paid. The mercy of God is shown in that it is not you or I who pay this price, but Christ who pays it for us. As the saying goes, “Jesus paid a debt he didn’t owe because we owe a debt we cannot pay.”
I don’t know about you, but I know what my sins are. I know what I deserve in justice. But in his love, God does not inflict that upon me. This is mercy. I don’t get what I deserve.
That’s not fair. Thank God it’s not.