21/05/2024
Forgive me for quoting such a long passage but hopefully these will be helpful. Please share them if you'd like (copy and paste please).
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𝑱𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝑴𝒆𝒓𝒄𝒚
Is God weak because He is merciful? Is a man a coward and weakling because he does not bully, brow-beat, and persecute those who need his help and ask for it? To identify manliness with strength and lack of pity would ultimately lead to the destruction of hospitals, centers of education, churches and all society. In less time than it takes to tell, dispensaries of mercy would be objects of official disapproval, and the only approved surgeons would be those who preferred brass-knuckles to scalpels. No, mercy is not for sissies. Mercy demands a strong and human heart, along with a human soul overflowing with perfections that can be of help to others. A merciful man is one who has something to give.
Too often the notion of God's justice is associated only with the words: "Depart from Me, ye cursed, into the fire that was prepared for Satan and his angels." Justice ordinarily wears a stern face. But we have seen that in God justice is never alone, but is always accompanied by mercy. These two are as it were the two arms of God, preventing any successful flouting of the divine plan, on the one hand, and, on the other, tempering the severity of absolute justice.
Stock objection number one: God must be unmerciful and cruel, since He condemns to eternal fire all those who die in the state of mortal sin. Can He send to hell a poor, weak human being who found the call of revenge, or pride, or lust, too strong for his fallen human nature? Can God be merciful in inflicting perpetual suffering upon such an one?
In the first place, note that God does not send people to hell. The only people who are in hell are those who deliberately chose to go there. One mortal sin can do this; it is a turning away from God and toward creatures; it implies at least confusedly a deliberate choice of this creature in preference to the friendship of God. If a person in this condition, God with all His omnipotence cannot save him from hell. And since death cuts short all chances of changing one's mind, for all eternity those who are in hell want to stay there. They have made their bed and must lie in it.
𝑷𝒖𝒏𝒊𝒔𝒉𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕
But it is a crude mistake to picture God as gloating over the horrible sufferings of the halls of hell. God does not gloat over suffering. He is actually merciful even to those who are condemned to hate Him for all eternity, for these enemies of God are not punished nearly as much as they could be, and should be. Mercy tempers divine justice even in the damnation of the reprobate, says St. Thomas, not because it remits but because it lessens somewhat the punishment due to them, as God punishes them less than they deserve. "When thou art angry, O Lord, thou wilt remember mercy."
The problem of harmonizing God's justice with His mercy is sometimes exceedingly painful. When death snatches a child from the arms of his parents, when married people have to put up with worthless partners, or when war strips a nation of its youth and home life and all sanity, when the innocent are shamefully robbed, tricked, and exploited by unscrupulous politicians or businessmen—then, especially if these things happen to us, we feel surging up from rebellious hearts the mighty complaint; God cannot be just, He cannot be merciful. If He were just He would not permit His laws to be so lightly set aside and abused; if He were merciful He would not permit these things to happen to me.
These are dangerous thoughts. Despite the racking grief and savage resentment such events arouse, we must always remember the truths about God: He is just, merciful, and loving. Once let go of these truths, and cynicism, pessimism, despair let loose their dark floods into the soul.
𝑯𝒆 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒔𝒆𝒕𝒉
The fact that we suffer cruelly does not mean that all our suffering is just an accident, a painful interlude which must be terminated at once at all costs. It is possible that God deliberately permits suffering to walk a few steps with us. We certainly are not His step-children; He loves us, and permits these things to happen to us, much as a loving, just, and merciful father will permit some slight inconveniences to touch his children.
God who is all-merciful and all-just permits us to suffer for two reasons. Suffering serves as a flame which purges away from our souls all those light faults which are the inevitable result of human living. Suffering also serves the excellent purpose of making a man fall on his knees in humble supplication before the throne of God.
When we suffer, we pray, we admit we need His help; and this we do in the conviction that God not only can but will help us, if it is for our own good.
Love, justice, and mercy, like three lovely sisters, lend grace and beauty to the life of us all. Banish them from our minds and hearts, and life at once becomes a barren desert, a cynical, brutal, dreary trail leading to darkness and despair.
Fortunately for us all, love, justice, and mercy cannot be banished from human living, because all three exist irrevocably, eternally, in God. They exist because God has a will. Indispensable to God, they are a necessity for men and women of every age and time. They are the first-fruits of God's will.
~ Fr. Richard Murphy, O.P., 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒚 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒂𝒚𝒎𝒂𝒏, Vol. 1, "When Mercy Seasons Justice" (forthcoming from Arouca Press)
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