From the Pastor’s Desk
The response to today’s Psalm – “He who does justice will live in the presence of the Lord” – is a good time in this Jubilee Year of Mercy to recall the connection between justice and mercy.
In his Bull of Indiction for the Jubilee, Misericordiae Vultus (“”), Pope Francis reminds us that in our culture today the concept of justice has been limited too often to a strict sense of legalism. In the Bible, however, especially in the Old Testament, justice has to do with be faithful to the covenant. Therefore, to be a just person means that one lives in right relationship (“righteousness”) with God and others. Justice ultimately means that we all have to learn to get along with each other. Thus, as John Milton put it so well in his work Paradise Lost (1667): “I shall so temper Justice with Mercy.”
Justice is not about vengeance or retribution. Instead, justice seeks to do things right so that everything can be kept in order, God’s order. All of our relationships should reflect this virtue. Everything we do, everything we say should manifest the way of justice in which God’s ways come first, not our own. In turn, we see how justice and mercy are closely related. When we seek the good of others before my own, we will also look for ways to enact the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy.
Love,
Father Tom