“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful,” Jesus says to his disciples. We come from a love, that in view of our sin, our weakness, and our woundedness, manifests itself as mercy. Mercy is love in action, a love aware of our need and brokenness that rather than sit back and judge, actively seeks to heal and restore. Today and every day, our Lord calls us to do the same.
It’s not an easy task. In our daily lives, we may find that it is much easier to judge our neighbor than to seek to understand them and offer them mercy and compassion. It’s a work that asks that we try to see beyond what meets the eye in our neighbor, but perhaps more importantly, in our own hearts. There’s an adage that says that every time we judge, we reveal an unhealed part of ourselves. Often, what we judge in the other is something that we once manifested and were taught, with a certain level of harshness perhaps, was unacceptable and contemptible.
What we may have to heal is not our judgement of right from wrong, but rather the voice that tells us that we are not worthy of love. When we begin to believe that God’s love is unconditional and present for all, then we will cease to sit in our judgement and will instead begin to actively seek and share the love which heals and restores.