Where do you draw the line—the “mercy line?”
The mercy line marks the point beyond which, in your view, mercy should NOT be offered to a person: If you do such-and-such a thing—if you cross this particular line in your behavior—you should not be offered any mercy by God. None whatsoever! Justice—yes; vengeance—perhaps; but mercy—no.
Where do you, personally, draw the “mercy line?” One way to answer that question is to identify some of the people who, from your perspective, have actually crossed it.
No doubt many men and women nowadays would have at least a few world leaders on their list: people like the communist dictator of North Korea, who reportedly had his half-brother and hundreds of other people killed in order to secure his power; people like Vladimir Putin and the leaders of terrorist groups like Hamas.
Would people like this be on the bad side of your “mercy line?” Would those who have committed capital crimes like rape and murder be there? Would any people who have personally hurt, cheated or offended you be there?
This weekend, on the Second Sunday of Easter, the Church celebrates “Divine Mercy Sunday.” At this point, most Catholics probably know the origin of the Divine Mercy Devotion: Back in 1931, a young Polish nun, Sister Faustina Kowalska, saw a vision of Jesus with two rays of light coming out of his heart. Jesus told her to have a painting produced replicating the vision, and to have it signed, “Jesus, I trust in you!”
Over the next seven years, the Lord gave Faustina numerous private revelations concerning his merciful love. These she recorded in a diary, as Jesus had instructed her to. Father George Kosicki, who was a recognized authority on the Divine Mercy Devotion, said that through these revelations, “Jesus taught the young nun that his mercy is unlimited and available even to the greatest sinners. He revealed special ways for people to respond to his mercy in their lives, and he gave her several promises for those who would trust his mercy and show mercy to others.”
The fact that the Lord’s mercy is “unlimited” and “available even to the greatest sinners” means that Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, does not have a “mercy line.” He’s never drawn one, and he never will. Thus, there’s nothing we can do in our lives that will put us beyond the reach of God’s saving grace—nothing we can do that will prevent us from experiencing the Lord’s mercy, won for us on the cross—if our repentance for the sins that we’ve committed is sincere.
That’s good news for us, and for every sinner. And so, if we’ve made the mistake of drawing a mercy line in the past with respect to anyone else in the world, it’s time for us to become more like Jesus, and erase it.
