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16 Apr 2023 - Solemnity of the Second Sunday of Easter; Divine Mercy Sunday, Cycle A

My dad was a regular attendee of wakes and funerals. The natural politician in him made it a good way to stay connected with his people: family, friends, and business associates. The Irish in him made it fun, which meant that, more often than not, my mom, my sisters, and I were in tow as my dad stopped by the wake of a classmate from high school, a buddy from the bar, or a relative we never knew we had. I remember once worrying about not knowing what to say to a grieving widow. My mom said, “Just say, ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’ That’s it. Remember, this isn’t about your comfort. It’s about offering comfort to someone else who is sad and hurting.” The catechism couldn’t have put it any better. The works of mercy—like consoling the afflicted and burying the dead—are specifically intended to relieve the bodily (corporal) and spiritual suffering of our neighbors. Offering works of mercy to people in pain is our way of paying forward the mercy God showers on us. Divine Mercy Sunday is a good time to remember how we bear witness to mercy through these merciful acts: Corporal: Feed the hungry; give drink to the thirsty; clothe the naked; shelter the homeless; visit the sick; tend to the imprisoned; bury the dead. Spiritual: Instruct the uninstructed; counsel the doubtful; admonish the sinner; bear wrongs patiently; forgive offenses willingly; console the afflicted; pray for the living and the dead.

Authors Patrice J. Tuohy

corporal works of mercy spiritual works of mercy

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The inner word

23 Jul 2023 - Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Mercy and justice, love and judgment: God holds together what for human beings can frequently be extremes. We also hear this week from Saint Paul about the Holy Spirit and prayer, and in the gospel more parables about the kingdom of God. How can you make more of an effort to temper your sense of justice with mercy, and mercy with justice? What do you find most difficult about prayer? How can the Holy Spirit bear your prayer up? What are the “small seeds” that can grow into great trees in your spiritual life?

Mercy Justice

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Exploring the word

23 Jul 2023 - Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Here’s my latest idea for our T-shirt-and-bumper-sticker culture: “Those who are just must be kind.” OK, it’s not my idea; the Wisdom writer came up with it first. But it encompasses in a nutshell what the whole Bible intends to say about the nature of God. Some folks have always been enamored of God’s justice, and others pin all their hopes on God’s mercy. Yet divine justice includes clemency by definition. You can’t separate these two without risking a misunderstanding of both. If it’s hard for many of us to imagine a “master of might” who governs with lenience and permits repentance, it’s because we have precious few role models of this approach in the authorities around us. If you had parents who were both just and kind, then God bless you. This will make the concept of an all-powerful yet abundantly merciful Lord plausible to you. But those who had rigidly authoritarian parents or entirely permissive ones will find the balance between justice and mercy difficult to fathom and nearly impossible to imitate. For those experiencing this quandary, my advice is to paint yourself a wall plaque and read these words every single day: “Those who are just must be kind.” Slow to anger, rich in kindness Does God get mad? Anyone who doubts this must be unfamiliar with much of the Old Testament and a fair amount of the new. Just think of Noah’s ark riding above the devastation and Jesus with a whip of cords in the Temple and you get the idea. Of course, to speak of God having an emotional experience of anger is anthropomorphism. The Bible doesn’t suggest that God flushes red and has steam coming out of his ears like a cartoon character. But clearly human beings make choices and pursue directions that are contrary to the Holy Will. And this contrariness is something that provokes a divine response. How could it not? Those who love must also know outrage when the beloved is in jeopardy. But the divine response unfolds slowly. It’s built into history according to the original design of creation, time, and space. No thunderbolt is likely to be sent Earthward the moment you break a commandment. But sooner or later, the effects of that breakage and many others like it will be felt. A corrective will be issued. And heaven help you when that corrective arrives. And heaven will help you. That’s the point here. While it really does make a difference to God whether we move toward the designs of love or away from them, the situation is not hopeless. At any moment we can turn around—five miles down the wrong road or 5,000 miles—and be rescued by a gracious and merciful God, as the psalmist declares. That isn’t because God is a patsy for sinners. It’s because the ends of love can only be love. I’m not saying sin doesn’t matter. It matters immediately, urgently, and ultimately. But love matters more. Love matters originally, essentially, and eternally. The Kingdom of justice and mercy Last week we heard a parable about a generous sower who is something of a cockeyed optimist. This week’s gospel features another sower who is agriculturally double-crossed by an enemy. Our earlier farmer only had to contend with the irregularities of the soil. This new farmer has an active opponent who deliberately sows weeds into the wheat field. Why doesn’t the farmer act at once to allow the servants to pull up the weeds? Such a move might also dislodge the crop he is trying to cultivate. This is the best argument against capital punishment or any absolute formula of retribution I’ve ever heard. God doesn’t send the thunderbolt at once because there is still time, still a chance that the crop in each of us might be safely harvested. When plants are young it is hard to see which is which, weed or wheat. The time will come when the differentiation is final and the fruitless bundles must go the way of the fruitless. But that time is for the master to decide, not the servant. Human justice, with its clean distinctions and quick retribution, often misses the opportunity of the patient farmer. I knew a young gang member who, in an impulsive rage, fatally stabbed a caseworker trying to help him. He went to jail for murder 20 years ago and is still there. The frustrated young man had no education, no role models, no opportunities apart from life on the streets. The middle-aged man he has become has bitterly repented his criminal past, is finishing a college education behind bars, and leads a Christian and purposeful life. Other caseworkers who knew the murdered man and the reformed murderer have vouched for his parole but to no avail. Human justice has failed to prepare a place for such people and so they are not reintegrated into society. Divine justice has: It’s called reconciliation. Jesus is quick to tell another story about sowing, this one about tiny seeds that produce enormous consequences in a mustard bush. Once again the outcome cannot be foretold by the evidence contained in the beginnings. We hear this theme echoed in the story of the woman, the flour, and the yeast. How could these mere grains make such a difference to three measures of flour? To the human eye it might seem impossible. Yet to God all things are possible. Applying the word Hidden from the world’s foundation The surprising nature of the kingdom of God seems to have been buried just like all these seeds into the ground of being at the dawn of creation. Jesus implies that the Kingdom is no second thought after original sin but integral to the design of the world. Certainly the enemy has had plenty of opportunities to sow mayhem into that rich field, but the Kingdom relentlessly springs up along with it as God always intended it would. We, too, are given every opportunity to participate in and cultivate the fruits of the Kingdom, and we are not left guessing how to do this. Justice is fundamental, and kindness is nonnegotiable. These two divine attributes are the seeds from which Kingdom comes. Related scripture links Not of this world: John 18:36 Justice and mercy: Ps. 25:6-7; 51:3-19; 130:1-8; 143:1-12; Isa. 1:18; Luke 1:76-79; Col. 1:13-14 With God all things are possible: Gen. 18:14; Job 42:2; Matt. 19:26; Mark 10:27; Luke 1:37 Catechism links Justice: CCC 376; 1805; 1807 Heaven: CCC 325-326; 1023-1029 Kindness: CCC 736; 827; 1832 Mercy: CCC 1829; 2447

Authors Alice Camille

god's mercy god's justice divine justice Those who are just must be kind

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Featured Exploring the Word

21 Jul 2024 - Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Back in grade school I smelled a rat when it came to the works of mercy. I understood perfectly why feeding the hungry or giving water to the thirsty was a compassionate thing to do. And of course the homeless need shelter, the shivering need clothing, the sick and imprisoned want company, and the dead could use a proper burial. It took no religious imagination whatsoever to perceive why a merciful person would do these things. But those are the corporal works of mercy. The other list was the one that made me suspicious. The spiritual works of mercy didn’t sound very merciful at all to me: Warn the sinner? Teach the ignorant? I hated being warned, and dreaded being taught. Counseling, comforting, forgiving, and praying, maybe. But I considered it more charitable when someone overlooked my faults and left me blissfully ignorant. Fast-forward 15 years and I became—by choice no less—a religious educator. Warning the sinner and teaching the ignorant is what I do for a living. In the last quarter century I have changed my mind a great deal about a lot of things, most especially what constitutes mercy toward my fellow human beings. And I presume everyone who grows up to be a parent, instructor, senior employee, program director, minister, or leader of any kind knows how true it is that ignorance cries out for learning and erring for correction. That’s why, instead of putting his feet up after a long day of healing the sick and chasing demons down the street, Jesus shakes his head, sighs deeply, and starts teaching. How can he do otherwise? Just look at those people, milling about, not having a clue what life is for, what every day might mean if spent in the reign of God instead of the marketplace of Galilee. These people think life is about making money, baking bread, doing what the priests say, keeping your head down around the Romans. They honestly believe that a good day means retiring with a stomach full of food, and a good life means dying with a son at your side to carry on your name. They’ve set their sights so low and near that they don’t even think to lift their eyes and see what more there could be. And there’s so much more; heaven is just brimming with glory to behold. We who grow up to know how important it is to feed the spiritually hungry are the blessed ones. It means we’ve been nourished ourselves, that someone showed compassion to us and gave us a glimpse of how much bigger life is than the belly, and how much more there is to life than leaving our name behind at the end. Related scripture links Good King Hezekiah: 2 Kings 18:5 The cry of the poor: Ps. 34:16-18; Job 34:28; Prov. 21:13 The parable of the lost sheep: Luke 15:1-7 Jesus as the good shepherd: John 10:11-16 Jesus will lose none given to him: John 6:37-39 Catechism links Shepherds: CCC 525; 543; 553; 605; 754; 764; 881; 896; 1038; 1551 Adapted from a previously published Exploring the word.

Authors Alice Camille

corporal works of mercy spiritual works of mercy

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Featured Exploring the Word

21 Jul 2024 - Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Back in grade school I smelled a rat when it came to the works of mercy. I understood perfectly why feeding the hungry or giving water to the thirsty was a compassionate thing to do. And of course the homeless need shelter, the shivering need clothing, the sick and imprisoned want company, and the dead could use a proper burial. It took no religious imagination whatsoever to perceive why a merciful person would do these things. But those are the corporal works of mercy. The other list was the one that made me suspicious. The spiritual works of mercy didn’t sound very merciful at all to me: Warn the sinner? Teach the ignorant? I hated being warned, and dreaded being taught. Counseling, comforting, forgiving, and praying, maybe. But I considered it more charitable when someone overlooked my faults and left me blissfully ignorant. Fast-forward 15 years and I became—by choice no less—a religious educator. Warning the sinner and teaching the ignorant is what I do for a living. In the last quarter century I have changed my mind a great deal about a lot of things, most especially what constitutes mercy toward my fellow human beings. And I presume everyone who grows up to be a parent, instructor, senior employee, program director, minister, or leader of any kind knows how true it is that ignorance cries out for learning and erring for correction. That’s why, instead of putting his feet up after a long day of healing the sick and chasing demons down the street, Jesus shakes his head, sighs deeply, and starts teaching. How can he do otherwise? Just look at those people, milling about, not having a clue what life is for, what every day might mean if spent in the reign of God instead of the marketplace of Galilee. These people think life is about making money, baking bread, doing what the priests say, keeping your head down around the Romans. They honestly believe that a good day means retiring with a stomach full of food, and a good life means dying with a son at your side to carry on your name. They’ve set their sights so low and near that they don’t even think to lift their eyes and see what more there could be. And there’s so much more; heaven is just brimming with glory to behold. We who grow up to know how important it is to feed the spiritually hungry are the blessed ones. It means we’ve been nourished ourselves, that someone showed compassion to us and gave us a glimpse of how much bigger life is than the belly, and how much more there is to life than leaving our name behind at the end. Related scripture links Good King Hezekiah: 2 Kings 18:5 The cry of the poor: Ps. 34:16-18; Job 34:28; Prov. 21:13 The parable of the lost sheep: Luke 15:1-7 Jesus as the good shepherd: John 10:11-16 Jesus will lose none given to him: John 6:37-39 Catechism links Shepherds: CCC 525; 543; 553; 605; 754; 764; 881; 896; 1038; 1551 Adapted from a previously published Exploring the word.

Authors Alice Camille

corporal works of mercy spiritual works of mercy

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Homily stories

06 Jul 2025 - Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

Years ago, as a young woman in Chicago, I’d leave my job downtown and make my way up the Magnificent Mile until I reached the John Hancock Center. There, I’d board an elevator for Patty Crowley’s huge apartment with stunning views of the city. Patty—along with her husband and another couple—founded the Christian Family Movement back in 1948, one of many Catholic-action groups to spring from the “See-Judge-Act” method of reflective engagement taught by Belgian Cardinal Joseph Cardijn. The Crowleys were always known for immense hospitality, so it helped that Patty’s place was far more large than opulent. Also key: It was easy for people to get to—from all over the city, from every walk of life—via public transit. Patty invited scores of community and church groups to rely on her home for meetings, educational events, and strategizing sessions. I belonged to one such group. The most vivid memory I have of Patty’s place were the framed photos crowding every wall: It felt like an on-Earth depiction of the biblical “cloud of witnesses”—filled with portraits and group shots of her family, the Crowleys’ many foster kids, a ton of foreign-exchange students, plus early and current Christian social-action collaborators, including people Patty knew through the homeless shelter she started and prisoners she visited. Whenever I hear think of the 72 action-oriented disciples Jesus sent out, I think of those souls crammed onto Patty’s walls—all the amazing apostolic action they represented and inspired in each other, particularly in working together, and how their numbers were increased by those of us who gazed upon them, simply by gathering in Patty’s living room to strategize the works of mercy.

Authors Mary Lynn Hendrickson

hospitality works of mercy

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13 Jul 2025 - Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

Mercy is in danger of becoming an antique word. We live in a tough world where cynicism is the protective wrapping around many hearts. Hostility toward the enemy and suspicion of the stranger are the norm. Our bitterly partisan culture encourages us to be vitriolic toward competing ideas and those who hold them. It's acceptable and even fashionable to be rude, self-promoting, and other-denying. The more hysterical the public rhetoric is, the farther it travels and the more popular it becomes. We must oppose this trend. Christians can't afford to toss their hats in the ring with intolerance, arrogance, and downright cruelty. When hysteria rules, we must remain good stewards of our words and emotions and where they lead us. Spraying unbridled passion about self-indulgently is incompatible with the baptismal vocation. We're called to surrender our lives for others, not trample them underfoot if they oppose our point of view. Why is that important? Because demonstrating mercy toward the neighbor is an imperative of our faith. Eternal life hangs in the balance when we choose to exercise or deny compassion. The great commandment obliges us to love God and neighbor. And if we want to quibble about the definition of neighbor, we only have to listen to the parable of the Good Samaritan again. "Good Samaritan" has become a metaphor for do-gooding; that's unfortunate. The Good Samaritan is not a philanthropist spreading money around on his favorite causes. No, the Samaritan is not a charitable guy in the traditional sense. He's a brave man who crosses clear social lines to rescue the wrong person: his enemy. A man who hates him. A man to whom he owes nothing, neither kindness nor sustenance. Chances are the fellow in the gutter would have let the Samaritan bleed to death had the roles been reversed. The Samaritan doesn't weigh that probability very heavily when making the decision to help. Most of us can't get our minds around what the Samaritan does because we can't even offer an ideological opponent common courtesy, never mind spending time, money, and genuine compassion on the suffering of a perceived foe. We have little practice with sympathy, much less empathy. The modern model is to be sarcastic, distant, and unconcerned. "Not my problem, not my job" is the mantra. Many of us don't even want to hear about the plight of undocumented immigrants, or gay bashing, or the intimidation of American Muslims, or the continued effect of racism and sexism, even when it operates in our church assemblies. The Good Samaritan remains a rather lonely fellow. Yet the advice of Jesus is plain: "Go and do likewise." Related scripture links Written on hearts of flesh: Jer. 31:33; Ezek. 11:19-2, 36:26-27 We are God's letter: 2 Cor. 3:2-3 The word dwells in us: Phil. 3:16 You shall love the Lord and your neighbor: Lev. 19:18; Deut. 6:5, 10:12 Catechism links Mercy: CCC 1822; 1825; 1829; 2083; 2447; 2822 Adapted from a previously published Exploring the word.

Authors Alice Camille

Mercy Good Samaritan empathy

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