“To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.”
-- Thomas Merton
God's First Act of Mercy?
Mercy is a special kind of love. It is compassionate love for one who does not deserve it, or for one who desperately needs it but can do nothing on his or her own to get it. A man who has been bested in a duel, who lies on the ground looking up at the sword point of the victor, has but one request – “Mercy!” The man who has been robbed and beaten, who lies bleeding on the side of the road, needs but one thing from all the passers-by – mercy.
A beautiful hidden gem of a verse in the third chapter of Genesis may just be a description of God’s first act of mercy. Of course we should qualify this by acknowledging that the stories of creation and the fall of humanity are not to be read literally in the sense of historical narratives. But they are stories of fundamental, essential spiritual truth, and for that reason, we can and should mine them again and again, drawing out of them all the sparkle and richness and value that we possibly can.
The verse I am referring to immediately follows the account of the first sin of Adam and Eve, the self-centered choice that begins a downward spiral of escalating violence and ultimately leads to the destruction of all but a small remnant of humanity (and all of this by Genesis 7!). The choice made by Adam and Eve to oppose God justly leads to their punishment, including banishment from the Garden of Eden. But it is this expulsion that prompts God’s mercy. It is as though he is thinking of the difficulties that await his children (for though they have sinned they are still and always will be his children) beyond the garden. Although he knows that Adam and Eve must leave the place of their sin, he wants to protect them. And so, “[f]or the man and his wife, the Lord God made leather garments, with which he clothed them” (Gen. 3:21).
True, you may say God was only covering the newfound shame of Adam and Eve (3:10-11). But he could have left this task to their own toil. Instead, he takes it upon himself to clothe them. He covers their nakedness, and in doing so, he protects them from the brutal sun and the harsher conditions they are likely to find outside the paradisal Eden.
In this verse, we read and imagine an unforgettable scene, an admittedly anthropomorphic image that conveys a very accurate truth about our God. Even when we bring suffering upon ourselves, he does not abandon us. He is moved with compassion. He himself takes up needle and thread and sews up protective garments, handcrafted from the bounty of his own creation, to clothe us in his mercy.
Memory of the Garden of Eden by Vincent Van Gogh
That Mighty Heart
“Long ago and far away an ordinary man called John laid his head on the breast of Christ and listened to the heartbeats of the Lord. Who can venture to guess what that man felt as he heard the beat of that mighty heart? None of us can ever be in his place, but all of us could hear, if we would but listen, the heartbeats of God, the song of love he sings to us whom he has loved so much.”
-- Catherine Doherty, The Gospel without Compromise
A Joyful Life
The word “joy” has the connotation of exuberant happiness, big smiles, and irrepressible optimism. When we hear people say Christians should be joyful, we might wonder if we measure up. Doesn’t this kind of joyfulness come more easily to some personalities than others? In The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis offers an insightful commentary on joy that might give us a better understanding of what the word truly means as a way of life:
“There are Christians whose lives seem like Lent without Easter. I realize of course that joy is not expressed the same way at all times in life, especially at moments of great difficulty. Joy adapts and changes, but it always endures, even as a flicker of light born of our personal certainty that, when everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved. I understand the grief of people who have to endure great suffering, yet slowly but surely we all have to let the joy of faith slowly revive as a quiet yet firm trust, even amid the greatest distress: ‘My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is… But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness… It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord’ (Lam. 3:17, 21-23, 26)” (EG 6).
An elderly woman who was looking back at her life once told me, “I was content.” She meant that she was not always happy, but she was at peace. It was a simple way of describing a long life full of good things but fraught with difficulty. One might describe the life of Christ himself in much the same way. The joy of a Christian is realistic, genuine, compelling – it is not manufactured or manic. As Pope Francis wrote, joy adapts and changes. Sometimes it is exuberant, but sometimes it just “waits quietly.” The essence, the undercurrent, of Christian joy is a habitual falling back on the steadfast, infinite love of the God who saves and who holds all things in existence.
He's Got a Point
“The word of Scripture is truly the body of Christ and his blood; it is divine doctrine. If at any time we approach the Sacrament — the faithful know what I mean — and a tiny crumb should fall, we are appalled. Even so, if at any time we hear the word of God, through which the body and blood of Christ is being poured into our ears, and we yield carelessly to distraction, how are we not responsible for our failing?”
-- St. Jerome, Reflections on Psalm 147:12-20