Sunday, January 22, 2006

Judgment and Mercy

In the eighth chapter of the Gospel of St. John, we read how a poor sinful woman, whose sin was established beyond doubt, was brought to Jesus by the Pharisees, her enemies and His, in order that they might force Him either to condemn her, and so lose His character for clemency, or acquit her, and so lose His character for sanctity and justice.

Jesus, seeing the charge of horrible and publicly known sin established against the unhappy woman, .stooped down, and wrote in the dust on the pave­ment of the Temple. This was, as many say, to show that our sins are written by God as it were on dust; for as such writing remains only as long as it is not blown or wiped away, so our sins are remembered by God against us only as long as we neglect by prayer and penance to blot them from His memory. Jesus rose, after writing thus upon the dust, and pronounced the sentence He was called on to pronounce: She deserves to be stoned, indeed; but "he that is without sin among you let him cast the first stone." Again He stooped and wrote upon the ground, and when He rose up from writing, lo! the Pharisees had slunk away.

They had called for a sentence, and the sentence had been delivered against themselves. Their hypocrisy, their sham, outward sanctity, their interior defilement - this had Jesus condemned, and they, now turned criminals, had gone away abashed, and left the poor adulteress alone with Jesus. It is, as St. Augustine has beautifully said, "the Sinner left alone with the Saviour, the sick woman with her physician, the miserable with the merciful." "Woman, hath no man condemned thee?" "No man, Lord." "Neither will I con­demn thee. Go, and now sin no more."

Brothers and sisters, is not this a touching scene? See, side by side, the bitter condemnation by sinful men of a fellow sinner, and the gentle, compassionate forgiveness by Him who came to seek and save that which was lost. When we think on this story, we are moved to love Jesus, moved to trust in His full mercy; and moved, moreover, to shun all harsh and unmerciful condemnation even of those whom we know for a certainty to be grievous sinners. But we may, perhaps, wonder whether, after all, such mercy and forgiveness would suit us as well as it suited Jesus. Could we, with justice, be thus tender towards those who have grievously and openly sinned? Would not such conduct only encourage the sinner in sin, by showing how easy is forgiveness? Surely "I will not condemn thee. Go, and now sin no more" is a sentence worthy of God: but should it be ever the sentence of a man called on to judge a fellow man?

Dear brothers and sisters, why do we condemn sin? Is it not to save the sinner? Vengeance on sin, that is God's. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord." Correction is ours, but not vengeance. And how shall we best correct? Is it by fear or love? Is it by harshness or mercy? Is it by stoning the sinner, as the Pharisees would do, or by forgiving and advising, as Jesus did? Let us consult our own experience, and ask which is the more likely way to move sinners to sorrow for sin, and amend­ment of life: which has had the greater effect on our own lives, the threats and thunders of God's justice, or the pleadings of His mercy: the stormy reproaches and chastisements of our fellow-men, or the gentle, loving, forgiving reproof of those who share in the mercy and sweetness of the Sacred Heart of Jesus?

Surely in asking such questions I answer them, or rather, your own hearts answer them. Fear and punishment may terrify the sinner, may crush him, and at times bring him to realise his guilt; but it takes love and mercy to bring him to sorrow and amendment. We know how many a time a harsh rebuke has made us harden our hearts like steel against the truth, and has even driven us on, with fresh impetuosity, in the ways of sin. But a kind word, a tear shed over our misery, the pleading yet reproachful look of one who hates our sin but loves ourselves - this it is that has broken our proud spirits, and bent our stubborn knee, and brought us full of sorrow and full of love to the sacrament of forgiveness - back to the grace and light and peace of God.

Dear friends, we know this well. But do we act as if we knew? Is it thus we deal with sinners? When we are most anxious to turn a friend from his evil courses, from his intemperance, from his dissipation, from his careless life, is it thus we act? Do we go to him in anger or in love? Do we harden our hearts towards him, or soften them with prayer and compassion? Is our language like the soft voice of Jesus saying, "Come to me, all ye that labour and are heavily burdened," or like the forceful, "Depart from me ye cursed"; is it an in­vitation to forgiveness and hope or a condemnation to punishment and despair? We have ourselves sinned: we have ourselves heard the call of love, and found mercy where we dreaded justice; and now we deal with others as though we never heard of Jesus, or of His gentle Heart, or of His wish to seek and save, or of His unwillingness that any should perish. We act as if the Pharisees were our models, and Jesus, and His merciful Heart, but a sign set up to be contradicted by us.

Look into the world, and what do you see? Men with their hearts full of sin, and their hands full of stones. They act as though they hoped for mercy by being unmerciful: as if they were to escape Hell by sending others there - as if by showing the Almighty Judge how mighty they had been in judgment, they might escape the terrors of His tribunal, and the rigors of his justice! Truly tbey read the Gospel backwards, and set their lives in exact opposition to the life of Jesus, Who, flinging to the world His challenge, "Which of you shall convince me of sin?" went down among sinners, and bore their sins, and suffered their punishments, that He might win the right to be merciful to them, and with His own death save them from everlasting death. Behold the contrast between Jesus and the Pharisaical world in the judgment of sinners: there is what we have to imitate: there, what we have to avoid.

O Jesus, soften our hearts to sinners that we may win their souls to Thee. Sacred Heart, make our hearts gentle and forgiving while keeping them pure, that we may attract the sinner while we drive out the sin. Make us write, as Thou didst, our sentences of condemnation in the dust, that we may write our mercy on the hearts of men; and grant that by being severe to our own sins, and gentle and forgiving to the sins of others, we may come to receive in the measure we have measured out, and, in the company of the merciful, to find mercy!
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Adapted from Sermons 1877-1887
by Fr Arthur Ryan
President of St. Patrick's College
Thurles, Ireland


St. Patrick's College, in 1992, ceased to be a Seminary.

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