JEI {11}: The Year of Mercy

Welcome to the weekly link up, Just Enough Info (JEI).  The internets can be a great source of community, and I’d love to get to know you better!  Feel free to share your answers in the comments or link up if you have a blog.

As the Jubilee draws to a close this month, our topic is Mercy.

1. What did you do (or can in these last few weeks!) to mark the year?

Well, at home we kicked off the year with sort of a “Works of Mercy Unit Study” using picture books, and David is super into going through every set of holy doors we’re near.  I love that guy.

 

I just borrowed 33 Days to Merciful Love:  A Do-It-Yourself Retreat.  It has a handy chart of when to begin in order to end on an appropriate feast day.  Looks like I’ll be picking it up on November 22nd to finish on Christmas.  If anyone else is interested in taking the journey with me, let me know!  You have time to order a copy, and we can reflect together.
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We’re hoping to attend a special family-oriented talk on mercy with our homeschool group at the local Cathedral this month to finish up the Jubilee.  We’ll see if we get to any of these crafts from Look to Him and Be Radiant.  I’m all about realistic expectations.

 
2. What Work of Mercy is easiest or most challenging for you?

I’d say in general anything on the Corporal Works list is easy.  It doesn’t take rocket science (or much effort) to drop off some food at a food pantry, visit a nursing home, etc.  But the Spiritual Works of Mercy sort of make me grimace.  In our culture, one of the worst accusations to hurl at someone is that they are “judgmental.”

You can donate clothes or write to someone in prison and still keep your thoughts on their behavior to yourself.  You can love and serve them without any indication that they are wrong.  The Spiritual Works, though, largely involve showing or telling people they should consider change.  This is pretty judgey.  We are called:

• To instruct the ignorant.
• To counsel the doubtful.
• To admonish sinners.
• To bear patiently those who wrong us.
• To forgive offenses.
• To console the afflicted.
• To pray for the living and the dead.

I’m game for praying for people, and I suppose I’m open to doing some consoling.  But “admonishing?!?!”  Outside my own kids (and husband, tee hee), I am super uncomfortable with instructing and admonishing because I don’t want to be perceived as judgey.

There have been times where I *had* to drop some sort of truth bomb to those I love because I couldn’t bear the destructive behavior in which they were engaged.  Looking back, I don’t think it ever ended well.  Some relationships survived, some didn’t.  That hurts.  Is there a book out there called “How to Drop Truth Bombs Without Being an A**?”  Can someone please write it?  I need to read it.

The prideful side of my personality wants there to be some safe middle ground between being all crazy John the Baptist, wandering around half-naked eating grasshoppers, telling it like it is, and Joe Millennial who thinks we’re all okay no matter what we believe.  Please God– don’t make me be all in.  Just let me pray privately for conversions, okay? 

Don’t even get me started on the awful, awful, awrful smug opinion posts on social media that use “I’ll pray for you” as some sort of online door slam in an argument.  “I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree on (insert hot-button issue here).  I’ll pray for you.”  Slam.

It’s not quite as simple as “I love you.  God loves you.  Now go and sin no more.”  Or is it?  I don’t know.  I’m hoping that 33 Days gives me some insight.

 

3. Do you have a story of mercy in your own life to share? Or do you have a favorite saint/quote/resource about mercy to pass along?

In general I am inspired by the way Pope Francis has built on the foundation laid by Saint John Paul the Great in cracking open the mystery of God’s mercy.

Every year David and I do the Divine Mercy Novena, which begins on Good Friday, for a deceased friend or relative.  You can read more about this practice here.

When we speak at engaged retreats, I always mention the role of the sacrament of confession in our marriage.  If David seeks forgiveness from God in Confession, how can I refuse to forgive him for some little thing?  It works both ways.  If I receive the forgiveness of God, who is David to hold a grudge?  Confession plays a big role in being able to show mercy to one another.

 

I’m so glad for the opportunity to stop and reflect on the Jubilee year, since the busyness of life has kept me from thinking more about it until now.  I look forward to reading about others’ experiences of mercy.  Thanks for participating!

 

Answer these three questions on your blog (making sure to link back here!) or in the comments.

 

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