A blind man sat at the side of the road begging. How many people must have passed him by without paying any attention to him? He hears that Jesus of Nazareth will be passing by and begins to yell and hopes to get His attention. “Be quiet” the people who are well tell him. Again he is dismissed by everyone. Children hate it when other children ignore them even for a minute. They like to punish one another by ignoring the other. This man in need has been ignored his entire life. However, Jesus hears his call for mercy and notices him. Jesus asks that the man be brought to Him. As soon as Jesus pays attention to the man, this person’s value is completely changed in the mind of the crowd. Now people begin to console him and tell him to have courage. As Jesus recognizes the blind man’s value, so too does the crowd see his value and they begin to treat him differently. This man is changed by the fact that Jesus looks upon him. The opinion of the world about this man changes because Jesus looks at him. The blind beggar becomes important and has his dignity restored. He leaves the roadside and begins to follow Jesus because the Savior has looked upon him with mercy and changes who he is. Jesus is the face of the Father’s mercy and when he looks upon us we are changed. God’s mercy calls the blind man to become a follower. He takes up his name and follows Jesus and he will be forever known by all who read the scriptures as Bartimeaus.
Scripture is filled with stories like this. People are changed by the face of God’s mercy as shown by Jesus Christ. My two favorite examples are St. Paul and St. Matthew.
St. Paul was known as Saul before he experienced God’s mercy. He was a zealous Jew and was bent on persecuting Christians before he experienced God’s mercy. One day while he was out trying to find some Christians to arrest and kill, Saul encountered the merciful face of Christ. Jesus simply said to him: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me.” Rather than condemn Saul for killing Christians, Jesus looked upon him with mercy and invited Saul to follow Him as Paul. Once feared and hated by Christians as their persecutor, Paul would become the model of the great Christian missionary. In Luke-Acts, the two part work of the Gospel and Acts of the Apostles by St. Luke, Paul is presented as the great missionary who takes the Christian faith to Rome and around the Empire. Saul is changed by the merciful face of Christ.
St. Matthew was also changed by the face of God’s mercy—Jesus Christ. Known as Levi the tax collector, Matthew was hated by the Jewish people. All tax collectors were considered to be traitors. They worked for the Romans and made a profit by exploiting their people on behalf of the invading Roman soldiers. When Jesus looked upon Levi he was changed. There is a famous picture in Rome which presents the type of change that took place in Matthew when Jesus called him. This painting is by Caravaggio and it hangs in the church of St. Luigi dei Francesi. In it Caravaggio paints Jesus calling Matthew as he sits at his tax collector booth. What is so famous about the picture is that Caravaggio paints Jesus calling Matthew with the exact hand gesture with which Michelangelo painted God creating Adam in his painting of the creation of the world in the Sistine Chapel. In this way, Caravaggio wishes to convey the idea that the merciful way in which Jesus called Levi to follow Him caused him to be recreated as Matthew. So much did this story about the calling of Matthew inspire Pope Francis that he chose as his Papal motto the Latin words, “Miserando atque eligendo,” which means “In mercy He called him.” From this we can also say that Pope Francis was changed by God’s mercy as he saw how it was shown to Matthew. The face of God’s mercy, as it shows itself to us in Jesus Christ, ought also to change all of us.
God’s mercy calls us to look upon all God has done for us and reminds us that we ought to respond in thanksgiving for His mercy and forgiveness. I love the responsorial psalm that we proclaim today. It states: “The Lord has done great things for us, we are filled with joy.” Reflecting on God’s mercy should change our view of the world, how we see ourselves and how we see others. In the great Christian prayer—the Our Father—we are reminded that we must be willing to forgive others as God has forgiven us. Pope Francis writes in his letter introducing the Year of Mercy that the best way for each of us to respond to God’s mercy for us, as revealed in the loving gaze of His Son Jesus, is to make an effort to practice both the Corporal Works of Mercy and the Spiritual Works of Mercy during this coming Year of Mercy.
The Corporal Acts of Mercy are: to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to welcome the stranger, to visit the sick and to bury the dead. When we consider how much God has done for each of us, our eyes open in a way that allows us to see the world differently. These actions are to be undertaken in light of his love and mercy towards us. These charitable sacrifices become in this light natural and joyful. When a person truly understands that God has looked upon all of us with His mercy, that individual almost automatically becomes like Pope Francis and joyfully shares God’s mercy with others.
The Spiritual Works of Mercy are: to counsel the doubtful, to instruct the ignorant, to admonish sinners, to comfort the afflicted, forgive offences, bear patiently with those who do us ill and to pray for the living and the dead. Sometimes actions are easier than real heartfelt spiritual attitudes. The Spiritual Acts of Mercy call us to truly understand how merciful God has been to all of us and to allow this understanding to truly penetrate our hearts.
Often we are all blind to how much God has done for all of us. The second reading today tells us that Jesus has come to us from heaven to win us salvation and be our intercessor before the Father. In Jesus, God wants to pick each of us up from the roadside and show us that no matter what the world might say about us, we have value in God’s eyes. Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy. In the coming Year of Mercy, we are invited to notice Jesus gazing upon us with His mercy through the many acts of forgiveness He has extended to each of us. Contemplating the many acts of mercy that Jesus has extended to each of us, we are to allow His love to change our hearts and create us anew. Jesus’ love and mercy should change us as it changed Mathew and Paul. We should be challenged to see the world as Jesus sees it. The face of God’s mercy calls us to recognize ourselves and our brothers and sisters as worthy of God’s love and mercy. And if our brothers and sisters are worthy of God’s forgiveness and mercy—if we are worthy of God’s mercy and forgiveness—then surely we ought to show this same love and mercy to ourselves and to others. During this Year of Mercy, let us pray that God’s mercy will change all of us.
Fr. Michael McGourty
Pastor, St. Peter’s parish—Toronto
