Today we celebrate the Sunday of Divine Mercy. Too many of us are suspicious of mercy because we do not understand it. We pit mercy against justice. We think justice means holding people responsible, so mercy means not holding them responsible. No consequences!
This is a perverse distortion both of mercy and of justice. Mercy is not opposed to justice. Properly understood, mercy promotes justice. When you see people suffering injustice, and you want to help them to see things right, that is mercy.
Think of the corporal works of mercy; giving food and drink to the hungry and thirsty, clothing and sheltering the naked and homeless, visiting the sick and imprisoned, burying the dead. This is mercy. It is also justice.
The essence of mercy is this: to love people who are in any kind of distress or evil circumstances; to feel sorrow or grief at their condition, to will their good, and to be willing to do them good if we can.
Fr. Marian