(Photo of an old holycard of the merciful Jesus)

The upcoming “Divine Mercy Sunday” presents us with the occasion to reflect upon the meaning of the mercy of God celebrated on this feast. How is the divine mercy related to the justice of God?

Our first impression might be that these two qualities of God are in opposition to each other. It seems that the merciful God forgoes his justice in order to let the sinners go without consequences. It seems that it is sufficient to appeal to the goodness of God, call out to his compassionate heart (hence the word “miseri- cordia” for mercy) and everything will be forgiven. Yes, we sinners are happy to think of such a merciful God.

What then about the consequences of sin, the effects of our sins that hurt others? Mercy as presented above would it not be injustice toward victims of sins, toward the innocent who suffer the consequences of greed, violence and other transgressions? Those who live in suffering, whose lives are disrupted or taken by sins of others how can they meet with the goodness of God? How can those who suffer the lack of what is necessary for a life, the lack of water, food, medicine and peace because of the greed of others more powerful than them receive justice from God?

The merciful God should not let these sufferings go on without just remedy – one might say without “revenge”, but divine “revenge”, one that not destructive but invariably life-giving. God’s mercy does not mean a “free ride” for perpetrators of the sufferings of innocents. He does not want the sinners to perish, but at the same time he will not let the cry of the innocent for help unheard.

How does God dispense mercy and justice, it is covered with the veil of mystery for us. God does not annihilate the evildoers – this would not serve justice anyway – but inspires them to conversion and restoration of their misdeeds, of course if only they freely accept in their conscience the silent voice of the Spirit calling them. It is a work of mercy to lead sinners to recognize and amend their erroneous ways and to uplift and console the sufferers. God wants to save both and restore them to life, has mercy and justice for both. We can arrive to the insight that justice and mercy are not opposite and removed from each other, but we understand it as two antithetic qualities that are in fact coincident in God in one loving outreach toward his creatures.

Hans Urs von Balthasar’s little book Dare We Hope "That All Men Be Saved"? (Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 1988) has a chapter on  “Justice and Mercy”(pp. 148- 157.) which describes the development of thought on the relation between these two qualities of God from Augustine, through Saint Bernard, Saint Anselm of Canterbury and Saint Thomas Aquinas to the recognition of the identity of justice with mercy.

I would mention especially Saint Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo – (Why God Became Man) which brings us to the conclusion that the mystery of mercy and justice finds its solution in the cross of Jesus Christ, in his redemptive work. In view of the Cross we understand that “As far as God’s mercy is concerned, which seemed to you to have dwindled away when you considered his justice and human sin, we have found it to be so great, so much at one [concors] with justice, that it can be thought of neither or greater nor as more just.” (quoted in Balthasar, pp.152-153.)

“Now we have found the compassion of God which appeared lost to you when we were considering God's holiness and man's sin; we have found it, I say, so great and so consistent with his holiness, as to be incomparably above anything that can be conceived. For what compassion can excel these words of the Father, addressed to the sinner doomed to eternal torments and having no way of escape: "Take my only begotten Son and make him an offering for yourself;" or these words of the Son: "Take me, and ransom your souls." For these are the voices they utter, when inviting and leading us to faith in the Gospel. Or can anything be more just than for him to remit all debt since he has earned a reward greater than all debt, if given with the love which he deserves”. (Cur Deus Homo, II, 20: “How great and how just is God's compassion”.)

Thomas Aquinas (see Summa Theologica, I q. 21 “On God’s justice and Mercy” – (quoted in Balthasar p. 134 erroneously as questio 27)) comments on Anselm’s sentence in Proslogium, 10 and points out that there is no equilibrium between the misdeeds of the creatures and the infinite goodness of God, and justice that corresponds; the former is overwhelmed by the latter, so that justice must be a mode of his mercy: “Justice, therefore, in God is sometimes spoken of as the fitting accompaniment of His goodness; sometimes as the reward of merit. Anselm touches on either view where he says (Proslog. 10): "When Thou dost punish the wicked, it is just, since it agrees with their deserts; and when Thou dost spare the wicked, it is also just; since it befits Thy goodness."

Balthasar ends his short essay quoting Josef Pieper who resolves the antithesis between mercy and justice in the theological virtue of hope – being this “man’s appropriate, existential answer to the fact that these qualities in God, which to the creature appear to be contradictory, are actually identical.”  Pieper follows with a highly interesting remark on the hopelessness of presumption which is important if we think on those who fall in presumption by having an absolute certainty of “being saved”: “One who looks only at the justice of God is as little able to hope as is one who sees only the mercy of God. Both fall to pray to hopelessness – one to the hopelessness of despair, the other to the hopelessness of presumption. Only hope is able to comprehend the reality of God that surpasses all antitheses, to know that his mercy is identical with his justice and his justice with his mercy.” (Josef Pieper, On Hope, Ignatius Press: San Francisco, 1986 pp. 70-71.)

Let us finish this little reflection by asking this Mercy Sunday to grow in hope with the grace of God!

For further reading and prayer on Divine Mercy Sunday click here