By Corazon Damo-Santiago
God is all-merciful. As often as we sinners approach God with a contrite heart, humbling ourselves, God will forgive us. Inexhaustible is God’s mercy.
Indeed, “merciful and gracious is the Lord, slow to anger, abounding in kindness” (Psalm 103:8). He does not lock anger for man’s sinfulness in His heart. When we approach Him with contrite heart, He declares: “I see only your love and your humility”.
Aware that the world is in need of God’s unconditional and unfathomable mercy, Saint John Paul II declared the Second Sunday of Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday in 2000.
Preternatural gifts lost
A “being capable of tasting” God’s eternal goodness, this is how God created Adam and Eve. God did not only endow them with intelligence and free will designed for every human being. He extended to them preternatural gifts—a “flawless natural knowledge of God, strength of will, perfect control of passions and senses—gifts on the spiritual level”. And, the supernatural gift—“a sharing by God of his own nature”, which we call sanctifying grace.
On the physical level, He gave them perfect peace of mind, free from pain and suffering and the frightful alienation of the soul from the body in death. All these were gifts beyond human nature.
Despite all these gifts, man’s first parents wanted to be God-like: They disobeyed His only request “, not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and bad”, for if they do, they “are surely doomed to die” (Genesis 2:17).
Eat the fruit, they did at the taunting of the serpent. So, for deliberately choosing self over God, the entire human race sinned.
“The whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC 390).
God’s unfathomable mercy
Sin “depends upon the dignity of the one offended,” according to Rev. Leo J. Trese. That “God, the infinitely perfect being, likewise of perfect dignity,” is the benchmark of the gravity of the sin of Adam and Eve. Simply said, it has to take a God to atone for the sin.
Man’s dilemma: “Since only God is infinite, only God would be capable of an act of atonement which would repair the infinite malice of sin.”
The God of Infinite Mercy, He Himself solved man’s predicament. To atone for the human sin necessitates that God be “human if he were really to take our sins upon himself, really to represent us”, Trese explained.
God then takes human nature, but not in sin. True God and true man except in sin. God the Father in His Infinite Mercy decreed that his own Divine Son, Jesus, would “unite himself to a human nature to represent us and act for us”.
“Being genuinely God, also the least of his actions would be of infinite value—sufficient to atone for all the sins that ever had been or could be committed… But, Christ by His atonement did not take away, the freedom of the human will”, Trese said in Faith Explained.
He first loved us
Calling a dozen men to know and witness His spirit at work, Jesus preached about the kingdom of God when the designated time was decreed.
He healed the sick, fed the hungry, clothed the naked, drove away evil spirits in people, gave hope to the hopeless and aided those with bodily and spiritual needs. He taught men to pray, and suffer with dignity and have faith in a loving God.
He reached out to lepers, prostitutes, handicapped, outcasts and even those who rebuked his presence. Suffering sanctifies: “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27).
In summation, he cautioned men that not in deeds, but great love, will he be judged: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your mind”(Luke 10:27). And “Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no evil to the neighbor; hence love is the fulfilment of the law” (Romans 12:9-10).
Feast of Divine Mercy
The Feast of the Divine Mercy was instituted in obedience to the Lord’s instruction to Saint Faustina Kowolska.
“It is my desire that it be solemnly celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter. Mankind will not have peace until it turns to the Fount of My Mercy.”
It was also Jesus who appeared to Saint Faustina in a vision in 1931 to paint His image with the signature: “I trust in you. I promise that the soul that will venerate this image will not perish. I also promise victory over enemies already here on earth, especially at the hour of death. I, Myself, will defend it as My own glory. I am offering people a vessel with which they are to keep coming for graces to the fountain of mercy. I desire that this image be venerated throughout the world,” said in the Diary of Saint Faustina Kowalska.
The Lord spoke to Saint Faustina on several occasions on the importance of deeds of mercy. Telling her not to excuse herself from doing acts of mercy, He said: “I demand from you deeds of mercy which are to arise out of love for Me”.
The church lists the works of mercy. The corporal works of mercy: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, comfort the imprisoned, visit the sick and bury the dead.
The spiritual works of mercy are: admonish the sinners, instruct the uninformed, counsel the doubtful, comfort the sorrowful, be patient with those in error, forgive offenses and pray for the living and the dead.
****
Santiago is a former regional director of the Department of Education National Capital Region. She is currently a faculty member of Mater Redemptoris Collegium in Calauan, Laguna, and Mater Redemptoris College in San Jose City, Nueva Ecija.