Merciful like the Father
Much is spoken about mercy especially during this Jubilee Year of Mercy. We focus on the Mercy of God. It is not the finding of Pope Francis; he wanted to throw light to this fact how much it is needed in today's society.
The Bible clearly shows how merciful the Heavenly Father is; from the very first book to the last. After the fall of Adam and Eve we see God coming in search of them and asking "Where are you?" When Cain was punished after the murder of Abel, Cain complains to God: "My punishment is greater than I can bear! ... and any one who meets me may kill me" (Gen. 4, 13-14). Then what God did was really an act mercy: "And the Lord put a mark on Cain, so that no one who came upon him would kill him" (Gen. 4, 15b). God goes out of way to protect a murderer!
The Exodus event was a great act of God's mercy; that is why the Lord said: "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt... Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey..."(Ex. 3, 7-8). The people experienced this saving act and when they have crossed the Red Sea as if through a dry land, they sang along with Moses: "In your mercy you led the people you redeemed, in your strength you guided them to your holy dwelling" (Ex. 15, 13).
The mercy of the Lord does not confine to a limited circle or generation. He Himself says: "The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity, continuing his kindness for a thousand generations..." (Ex. 34, 6-7). Same is repeated in Deut. 5, 10: "...bestowing mercy, down to the thousandth generation..."
The Lord has a merciful attitude towards sin and sinner: "I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more" (Heb. 8, 12). In the prophesy of Micah we read: "...He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in showing clemency. He will again have compassion uponus; he will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea"(7, 18b-19).
Jesus through his words and deeds continued to manifest God's mercy. All his miracles were sheer manifestations of his mercy. He never performed a miracle to show his power or for the sake of doing a miracle; nor did he perform one for himself. We find in the gospels that he had compassion towards the sick and sinners. He touched and healed the leper, the mute and the blind. He taught: "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful" (Lk. 6, 36), whereby he implicates that the Heavenly Father is merciful. On another occasion he said: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice"(Mt. 9,13). So this is the will of God that he desires mercy from his children. This is what he was teaching, so to say in a compelling way, through the parable of the unforgiving servant(Mt. 18, 23-35). Concluding the parable Jesus said: "Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you"(Mt. 18, 33). Hence we reasonably conclude that we should in anyway show mercy to our fellow beings without any hesitation and discrimination. That was the reason why Pope Francis declared the Jubilee Year of Mercy.
Addressing a large group of more than 6000 priests Pope Francis said: "Mercy is a verb, not a noun". Grammatically 'mercy' is a noun not verb. What the holy father implicates is that, seminars, talk and meditation on mercy is useless unless it is turned into action; it has to be practiced in day to day life.
As we are coming to the close of the Jubilee Year of Mercy let us resolve to practice mercy in our daily lives, realizing the fact that mere talk or seminar on mercy wont help anyone. Let us try "to be merciful just as the Heavenly Father is merciful".