147. Fifth Monday of Easter

Meditations no. 193 (unofficial computer-aided translation)

Our Lord wants us to be kind and merciful.

I have often gone to look for a definition or a biography of Jesus in Scripture. And I have found it written by the Holy Spirit: pertransiit benefaciendo, he went about doing good. Every single day of Jesus Christ’s life on earth, from his birth until his death, can be summed up like that: he filled them all doing good. And his mercy led him to the extreme of dying for us. He is truly the Good Shepherd, who laid down his life for his sheep, who died for his flock.

During these weeks of Easter, the Gospel of the Mass presents us with the long speech of Jesus during the Last Supper, when his Heart poured out its affection for his disciples. Seeing their sorrow, because the time had come to part, he encouraged and consoled them, telling them: Sorrow has filled your hearts. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go the Consoler will not come to you.

The Consoler! I am he that comforts you. With Christ’s Ascension to heaven only a few days away, these words should fill us with joy and strength. God’s compassion will never be lacking, especially in our most difficult moments. As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you.

Our Lord has shown a special love for us. By calling us to his Work, he has wanted us to travel along the paths of this world as sowers of peace and joy, of understanding and consolation, as our Father often told us. Thus, we can gratefully say with St Paul: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Our Lord teaches us to be merciful. If we don’t learn from Jesus, we will never love. If, like some people, we were to think that to keep a clean heart, a heart worthy of God, means not mixing it up, not contaminating it with human affection, we would become insensitive to other people’s pain and sorrow. We would be capable only of an official charity, something dry and soulless. But ours would not be the true charity of Jesus Christ, which involves affection and human warmth. In saying this, I am not supporting the mistaken theories - pitiful excuses -which misdirect hearts away from God and lead them into occasions of sin and perdition.

We should ask our Lord to give us a good heart, capable of having compassion for other people’s pain. Only with such a heart can we realize that the true balm for the suffering and anguish in this world is love, charity. All other consolations hardly even have a temporary effect and leave behind them bitterness and despair.

If we want to help others, we must love them - I insist - with a love clothed in understanding, dedication, affection and voluntary humility. Then we will understand why our Lord summed up the whole law in that double commandment, which is really just one: love of God, and love of one’s neighbour, with all our heart.

Practical concern for others’ material needs.

Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. Our Lord urges us to be merciful and compassionate.

Otherwise, how are we to carry out our mission as apostles? How could we help souls, if we did not feel the burden of their needs? We have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. Our priestly soul must necessarily lead us, St Augustine says, to feel compassion in our hearts for the needs of others, which we should alleviate if we can.

We cannot remain indifferent to the sorrows and sufferings of other people. We cannot deprive a single soul of the help and affection which God has showered on us. No one should be able to say: I saw the tears of the oppressed, and they had no one to comfort them. Our Father told us: I never stop feeling concerned for anyone, my daughters and sons: I want to bring them all to God. I suffer for souls! At times I don’t know how my heart and my head can bear it. This is our spirit: to feel the lament of so many dry hearts.

However, the Church reminds us that if this compassion is sincere and deeply felt, it must be expressed in very specific ways. Nice words are not enough, nor are well-meaning but ineffective desires. If a brother or a sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them: “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit?

The merciful and compassionate attitude that our Lord asks from us has to begin with our own brothers or sisters, as we try to attend to their material and spiritual needs. We are not angels or pure spirits. We must look after their health, their rest, their food, and their clothes. If you notice that someone needs clothes and doesn’t say so, though they really should, then mention it yourself. If someone is not eating properly, bring it to the Director’s attention. These details, and many others, should be part of our concern for the others, to try and make their lives -God’s way on earth - pleasanter.

Among the corporal works of mercy, the first place belongs to the care of the sick. What attention and care they deserve! They really are the treasure of the Work. Although we are poor, our brothers and sisters will never lack what they need when they are ill. If necessary, we would steal a piece of heaven for them, and God would forgive us.

These details of care and attention warm our heart, comfort our soul, and make holiness more humanly attractive. They help us to be contemplatives, because they make us experience God’s presence among us. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Practising the spiritual works of mercy.

Mercy is more than simply being compassionate. Mercy is the overflow of charity, which brings with it also an overflow of justice. Mercy means keeping one’s heart totally alive, throbbing in a way that is both human and divine, with a love that is strong, self-sacrificing and generous.

Our Father insists: Never allow anyone to pass by unnoticed. Have a friendly word and a helping hand for everyone, following St Paul’s advice: Alter alterius onera portate et sic adimplebitis legem Christi. Bear one another’s burdens, and thus you will fulfil Christ’s law. Together with our care and concern for material things, we also need to be constant in performing what are referred to as the spiritual works of mercy.

In the first place, we should correct those who stray, doing so in the right way, full of charity, without being annoying or offensive. We should instruct the ignorant by teaching them doctrine and enlightening their minds with our Lord’s light. We should counsel those in doubt, by giving them honest, impartial advice. We should console the afflicted, sharing their sorrow. We should forgive those who offend us: by excusing them, understanding them, and being magnanimous. And we should help those in need, going to great lengths to serve others.

Our Founder would say: Practise this spirit yourselves, and instil it in others. Let it be seen in every aspect of your lives: in the way you pay attention to your colleagues when they share their problems with you; in the silent help you give, perhaps without even being noticed, when someone is unable to cope with all the things he has to do; or in the sincere advice you give to a colleague to help him work better.

Finally, we should pray for the living and the dead, with a generous heart, because your charity has to be far-reaching, universal. You have to set your sights on the whole of mankind, with a concern for every soul in the whole world. This attitude will lead you to pray for everyone and, to the extent of your possibilities, to help everyone.

If our love is universal, our prayer will also be universal in scope. There are so many souls to pray for here on earth: the Pope, the Father, our brothers and sisters, our parents and relatives, and our friends. Then there are the souls in purgatory. Everybody needs our prayers; everybody has a right to them. Pray for whoever is most in need, so that the charity of the Work may be as our Lord has wished it to be. And all through the mediation of the Immaculate Heart of our Holy Mother Mary.

Lord, you said: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Make us sensitive to the needs of souls; give us the generosity and fortitude to remedy those needs; give us a big heart like yours and that of your Mother, who is also Mater Misericordiae, Mother of mercy.