Today’s1 Gospel concerns Jesus rebuking the Pharisees when His disciples are caught picking grains and eating them on the Sabbath. He rebukes them, and in citing a line from the Old Testament, closes on a broader note:
If you knew what this meant, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned these innocent men.
The reference here is to the Old Testament prophet Hosea, who in chapter 6—in a litany of condemnations—drops this one:
What can I do with you, Ephraim?
What can I do with you, Judah?
Your loyalty is like morning mist,
like the dew that disappears early.
For this reason I struck them down through the prophets,
I killed them by the words of my mouth;
my judgment shines forth like the light.
For it is loyalty that I desire, not sacrifice,
and knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
Augustine writes beautifully about how the sacrifice that is desired—the only one that can satisfy—is Christ’s, and all of our sacrifice is simply to mirror His, in some small way. I really could just give you Augustine’s whole passage instead of whatever I’m writing, but instead, I’ll link it here and continue.
The strife between mercy and justice is one of the key mysteries of the Christian life that I’ve been struggling with for a few years now. There is of course, a balance: I thought Psalm 85 was “justice and mercy shall kiss” but it turns out love and truth meet and justice and peace kiss, which really ruins the clean and simple dichotomy I wanted here. Alas2.
At any rate, I’ve always thought of mercy and justice as complementary virtues: that is, without justice, mercy would have nothing to spare you from, and without mercy, justice would be purely utilitarian. Aristotle would tell us that virtue lies in the balance between extremes, and if he’s good enough for St. Thomas, he’s good enough for me. The question, then, is where the balance lies.
One idea I’m partial to is that of metanoia. Often the term is translated as “repentance” or “change of heart” but I read it more as a full uprooting of self, turning every deepest held belief toward the Light and the good. In this same sense, Fr. John Hugo (spiritual director to Dorothy Day and noted Pittsburgher) writes beautifully about how a Christian must not only experience conversion in every moment, but then also metanoia. To be simply good is one thing, but to be saintly is the next. In many situations I consider acting in justice as the good, but in mercy as the saintly. How often are we genuinely wronged and would be within our full rights to seek justice, but instead call upon mercy? This is Christ’s call to us when He asks us to not seek reparation when we are hit, but to turn the other cheek3.
Buuuut eventually justice needs to happen. Certainly one would not look upon issues of grave importance, like unbridled warfare, modern day slavery, and the rich lining their pockets while the poor starve, and simply say that the perpetrators need to be treated with mercy? Those steeped in sin would take our mercy and do even more harm with it, treating it as a free pass to run wild in their vice.
The hidden question is how often mercy looks like justice, and vice-versa. Is it genuinely merciful to take a rich person’s money away from them? On one hand, it objectively draws them away from their sin and makes living a virtuous life easier for them. On the other, can something so forceful be considered mercy? In drawing someone closer to virtue, a choice is made for them—not of their free will—to draw away from sin, or at least the near occasion of it.
Here we draw to the great mystery of What God Wills. A confessional state where we legislate away near occasions of sin certainly does not give the sinner a free choice for repentance, nor to love God by a freely chosen conversion. Would leaving sinners to their own business out of a mercy that quietly calls them to repentance be the correct choice, for God to work His goodness and let the rest simply fall into place? Are we playing too much butterfly theory as an excuse to opt out of hard conversations? These are the tricky pieces.
I don’t have a clean conclusion here. The best I can come to is that we ought to act in a mercy sandwich: leading with mercy, then justice (should the wrong prevail), and mercy after that regardless of how they respond. You can only do so much—besides pray, of course. I guess that’s the secret third option that usually doesn’t feel as good but is ultimately the most effiacious. I’m partial to talking to someone once or twice about their actions, and if they don’t get it after that, there’s not much I can do unless I feel especially called to bring it up again. But Jesus will take care of it, because He always does.
The practically unsatisfying4 but correct in light of reality decision would seem to be the above combined with prayer. I don’t know. And I don’t have to, I guess. If I let Jesus truly open my heart and grow to hear Him more regularly, I’ll know when I have to act and what I ought to do, and I can give the rest to Him. My personal tendency is toward justice, because I want to see people treated well. That’s not a bad desire, but it doesn’t always lead to the best outcomes, and sometimes it boxes Jesus out from being able to work in the situation.
All this to say: I ought to treat others in their sin the way I want Jesus to treat me in mine, which is with overwhelming mercy in the face of absolute badness. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts.
Wrote this a few days ago and was to lazy to edit tense everywhere. Sorry!
Remembering things the wrong way and getting through about a third of what I wanted to say before sourcing myself and finding out I was wrong has killed like, five of these posts. But I’m powering through this time.
There’s a whole different post here about how simple it is to live a lot of avoiding sin (conversion) without actually ever developing any virtue (metanoia). I wonder if this is particularly prevalent in American Catholicism, or Catholicism in general. It’s not that hard to say some prayers every day and show up for weekly Mass! And yet how far from heaven someone can be doing simply that.
I don’t say this to imply that prayer is like, lame or boring or whatever. But sometimes we say rote prayers in a rote way and it’s good even though we don’t *feel* like it is. Choosing the two marshmallows later always kinda sucks!