Thoughts on Mercy

The youth group students and I are learning about the ways each part of the Mass comes from Scripture. In the first part of Mass, just after the people gathered have spent a short time reflecting on their sins and confessing them through silent prayer, we pray together aloud, "Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy." It is a beautiful way of using people's words from the New Testament to ask for forgiveness of our sins, to unite ourselves and our present-day struggles to the words our foremothers and forefathers spoke and the struggles they encountered during Jesus' time.

In one of the talks we're listening to in the "A Biblical Walk Through the Mass" series, Dr. Edward Sri tells a story to illustrate what God's mercy is like: Sri witnessed his four-year-old daughter taking a toy away from her two-year-old brother. As Sri was about to enter the room to discipline her, unaware that he was watching, he saw his daughter give the toy back to her brother and then hug him, saying she was sorry for taking it.

"I was in awe over seeing my daughter's heart," he says. "Surely, yeah, there was a violation. ... She shouldn't have taken the toy. But as a dad, I saw more than the fact of her action that day. I saw her heart. And her heart felt badly about having hurt her brother. And she immediately just wanted to set things right. As a father, while I started coming in, saying, 'I'm going to issue discipline,' I [instead thought], 'Oh, I just want to hug my kids; this is awesome.' That's what mercy's all about."

Rather than thinking God pardons us out of anger or because God has to, Sri says God pardons us out of love and amazement at our hearts. He paraphrases Pope John Paul II's writing, saying, "Mercy is not just about a more powerful person pardoning a less powerful one. Mercy is an expression of love. God sees the change in us, he sees our contrite hearts, he sees the good that is there, and he responds with love."

Sri points out there are two other instances in Scripture besides asking for pardon from sin in which people use the phrase "Lord, have mercy." One is when they are asking for help from Jesus, such as the two blind men in Matthew 9:27 whom Jesus gives sight to. We, too, Sri says, can ask God for mercy when we are suffering or afraid or uncertain, trusting God wants to help us.

The other instance in Scripture when people use the phrase "Lord, have mercy," is when they ask for help for people they love, such as in Matthew 15:22 when a Canaanite woman asks Jesus to have pity on her because her daughter is "tormented by a demon," and in Matthew 17:15 when a father asks Jesus to have mercy on his son who has epilepsy. We can also, Sri points out, follow these people's examples and ask for mercy for those around us. I love that prayer.

Let us approach our God confidently, knowing we are loved and have no reason to fear that our Father will not forgive us or help us and those we love. He sees our hearts, and he delights in freeing us and helping us. Lord, have mercy.