Throughout the Advent Season, we will frequently hear in the Church’s prayers and in the Scripture readings, “Lord, show us your mercy and love.”  In some ways, you could say that we hear it too often.  Not because God’s love and mercy is limited, and certainly not because His love and mercy is a bad thing.  Rather, we hear about God’s mercy and love so often we may have a tendency to take these gifts for granted.  When was the last time you really spent much time reflecting on the meaning of the word “mercy”?

    The Latin word for mercy, “misericordia,” more readily puts before us the meaning of the word “mercy.”  In Latin, “cor” means “heart”, so misericordia or mercy means to have a heart that is full of pity for the misery of others.  In other words, mercy means to have a heart for the miserable, for the poor.  So, who are the poor?  Who are the miserable?

    First and foremost, WE ARE!  You might want to argue, saying, “Father JC, we are not poor.  We might not be rich, but we have a decent place to live, we have three meals a day, and we have decent clothing.”  That is probably true for most of us, but is material poverty what is really important.  God has shown us His love and mercy, yet there are still people who are materially poor.

    The poverty that God is most concerned about is spiritual poverty.  Spiritual poverty results from allowing the graces that God offers us to go unheeded.  In other words, spiritual poverty is the result of our sins.  No one should be happy with their sins.  The biggest danger to the spiritual life is becoming complacent with our sinfulness.  When we are most energetic about trying to excuse our sins, or to pass over them, or pretend that it is somebody else’s fault that we are the most miserable.  It is when we acknowledge our own miserableness that God is most moved by our misery, and pours forth His mercy and love.

    Mercy is the disposition to forgive.  It is a kindness that goes way beyond what fairness demands.  Misericordia also has the meaning of “tender-heartedness” or compassion.  It is the disposition to suffer with the one we love.

    God in His nature as a Divine Person could not have compassion on our suffering.  However, because of His infinite love for us, He took on our human nature so that He could suffer with us.  Through the Incarnation, God becomes the compassionate One -- suffering everything we suffer.

    The Prophet Isaiah, in talking about the miserableness of the people, said, “They turned to the Lord in their misery and He was won over” (Isaiah 19:22).  In other words, God was persuaded to give us another chance.

    So, what will we do with this other chance?  Will we give up our pride and acknowledge what miserable little persons we are, how many graces we have not used, and on how many occasions we have given a very poor example?  Acknowledging our miserableness should not lead us to depressions, but rather to cry out in a perfectly charming Advent oration, “Father, we need your help.”

    The compassionate One will not leave us in our miserableness, for the Lord will show us His mercy and love.