Misericordia

“For I will re-establish my covenant with you” (Ezekial 16:62).

God is so good! He is so righteous, so wondrous, so powerful, so awesome… and so merciful! The last month, as I have been digging deeper into what baptism in the Holy Spirit means, I have just been overcome and undone by God’s everlasting mercy. 

Just yesterday, I was sharing with my mother that I went to Spanish Mass and encountered a word I had heard before but never known. Misericordia. The root of the Latin word is “misery” and “heart”. What a beautiful image of what mercy means, to share and have a heart for the misery of the world. Even now, I am crying at the weight of the word, the weight of God’s heart, crying over us again and again. 

I once heard a conference speaker say, “It is not that we are worthy of His goodness, we could never be, but it is that He is so good, that He gifts it to us, asking only that we have a relationship with Him in return.” How true this is. We are never asked to strive for worthiness or perfection, because God knows that we are human. Instead, we are asked to strive for sharing mercy, sharing hope, sharing love, and sharing the Word of God, because God is love. We are called to be holy people made in the image and likeness of a merciful, beautiful God. 

How do we do this? We show mercy, no matter what. 

Jesus, we plead your precious blood,

poured out for our sins without demands.

We implore you to teach us your mercy each time we sit in Mass,

each time you give yourself so freely for our sins.

We ask for your example of unending love.

Teach us to love others without selfishness,

even when we may be wronged in ways so tiny, compared to your cross. 

Teach us to come to you when we feel too weak to show mercy.

Remind us of your unending, undying love for us.

Amen.

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