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As we prepare for the “Year of Mercy” we need to continue to understand that mercy is very good news. However, there is an old saying, “If you don’t know the bad news, the good news is no news.”

Sadly, many people today understand mercy in a very detached way, a way that is apart from repentance and a deep knowledge of our sinfulness. Too many people think that mercy means that God merely overlooks our sins, or doesn’t really care about our sins. Hence, the thinking goes,

“Since God is merciful, He doesn’t really care that I live with my girlfriend or fornicate. He doesn’t really care that I skip Mass or refuse to forgive someone who has hurt me. No, God is merciful so He doesn’t care about all that stuff.”

But of course this notion isn’t mercy at all. Rather, it cancels it and there is nothing to celebrate. For if God doesn’t care about sin, or even regard sin as sin at all, then mercy is not needed. And in this way if we do not grasp the bad news (that sin is real and a serious problem for us) then the good news (mercy) is no news.

In this year of mercy, we ought first to contemplate (by which I mean to grasp, deeply and innately) our sins, in order to rejoice profoundly in God’s mercy and abide in it. In doing this we are raised to higher and better things by confident joy and gratitude in God

Consider the following wisdom from St. Bernard of Clairvaux, as he speaks to this “cycle” of contemplating our sins and God’s mercy:

The first stage of contemplation, my dear brothers, is constantly to consider what God wants, what is pleasing to him, and what is acceptable in his eyes. We all offend in many things; our strength cannot match the rectitude of God’s will, being neither one with it nor wholly in accord with it. [L]et us then humble ourselves …

Once the eye of the soul has been purified by such considerations, we no longer abide within our own spirit in a sense of sorrow, but we abide rather in the Spirit of God, with great delight!

… The whole of the spiritual life consists of these two elements:  When we think of ourselves, we are perturbed and filled with a salutary sadness. And when we think of the Lord, we are revived to find consolation in the joy of the Holy Spirit.

From the first we derive fear and humility, from the second hope and love (Sermo 5,4-5, St Bernard Abbot).

Note that St. Bernard uses the phrase “salutary sadness.” Thus contemplating our sins is not envisioned as a self-loathing, or as a merely accusatory action. Rather, it is to lay hold of our need for mercy and for God. St. Paul in Second Corinthians distinguishes between godly and worldly sorrow: For godly sorrow produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but worldly sorrow produces death (2 Cor 7:10).

Hence we go to the foot of Cross and there behold what our sins have done to us, to others, and to Christ, and we weep there for our sins. But our sorrow is turned to joy as we also there encounter the true glory of mercy available to us.

Note: it is our repentance that unlocks mercy. It is our sorrow that brings consolation and joy. It is knowing the bad news that makes the good news, astonishing news.

Scripture admonishes, “Do not forget the works of the Lord!” (Ps 78:7) And thus we are summoned to remember.

What does it mean for me to remember? It means to have so present in my mind and heart what God has done for me that I am grateful and different.

And this work of God’s mercy that we should never forget, takes place at the foot of the Cross, where I am summoned to bring the burden of my sins, weeping for them and humbly admitting them. Yes, I need this death of Jesus’. That’s how bad off I am! But then rushes in gratitude and joy. And this experience of God changes and elevates me. Grateful people are different. They are more confident, generous, forgiving, and joyfully complaint in whatever God asks of them.

The year of mercy is not a declaration that God doesn’t really care about sin. It is a declaration that He cares about us and knows what sin does to us and to others. He seeks our repentance and sorrow in order to unlock His mercy, which elevates and changes us.

To summarize St. Bernard, the whole spiritual life consists looking to our self honestly so that we acquire salutary sorrow and run to the Lord, who transforms us by His grace and mercy. Repentance unlocks mercy and brings healing.

This song says,

If might I hide my blushing face 

While Calvary’s cross appears 

Dissolve my heart in thankfulness 

And melt my eyes to tears. 

At the cross at the cross

Where I first saw the light

And the burdens of my heart rolled away. 

It was there by faith I received my sight 

Now I’m happy all the day.

Here’s a very different version from the “We Sing” concert:

The short film below is an allegory of one young boy’s journey back to the light from the sad, dark world left to him by his mother and other elders of previous generations. I have seen this journey in the lives of many young adults in the Church today.

You might wish to view it first, but here is my summary:

The film opens with a mother (but it could be any elder) returning fearfully from the dark, tragic world she and others of her generation have made. It is noteworthy and emblematic that there is only a mother; no father is present nor is there any evidence of him. The mother has with her some “antiques” she has scavenged from the ruins outside. Her young son is anxious to see what she has found.

She tries to interest him in a flashlight and at first he is mesmerized. But then he hears the sounds coming from an old tape player she found and his eyes and heart light up (for faith comes by hearing, and hearing from the Word of God). The recording is one of a group of children playing. The voice of one child in the recording calls out, “Do you want to play with us?” Somehow the boy hears a call to come back to an old world, one where children still play and sing and dance (as Chesterton described in Orthodoxy).

The boy wants to look more closely at the tape player, but his mother will have none of it. For her, it is just something to sell in the dark world she and her generation have made. She puts it high up on a shelf out of reach and sends him to bed.

But he has heard a truth. His mind and heart have been touched. And so he makes a journey to the world he heard for just a brief moment. He leaves the dark, colorless world of poisoned cultural air and, listening to the tape (for faith comes by hearing, and hearing from the Word of God), enters a colorful world where children still play and can breathe the air without dying.

I have found this little story writ large and true in the lives of an increasing number of young adults in the Church. They have inherited from my generation (the Baby Boomers) a ruined world. Collectively speaking, we Baby Boomers are perhaps the most selfish, egotistical, spoiled, and destructive generation this planet has known. We launched a self-centered revolution and left in our wake a ruined culture, destroyed families, and great darkness; the very air of our culture is too poisonous to breathe.

But some younger adults have heard a Word of truth that calls them out of the ruins. Perhaps they wander into an older, untouched church built by a generation prior to the Baby Boomers. (The Baby Boomers built drab, deconstructionist, iconoclastic churches.) Perhaps they stumble upon a spiritual classic, attend a Latin Mass, or see a classic movie from before the revolution. Perhaps they hear a sermon by a priest or deacon who is “unreformed,” or who preaches solidly and unapologetically from Scripture and the Catechism.

Whatever it is, some young adults are rediscovering the wisdom that was cast off collectively by the Baby Boomers. I do not claim that most young adults are making this journey, just that there are enough to make the pattern noticeable. They come to Mass and to the bible studies and lectures I give. They want solid food; they want the truth, not some watered-down version of it. They do not want to make the mistake their parents made. They do not all go to the Latin Mass, but they seem to have an appreciation for the traditions that we Boomers cast aside.

There is something of this movement in the video below. A young boy hears a snippet of truth from a previous era. Unlike his mother, he is touched by it and makes a journey toward the truth he has heard.

How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news! … So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for “Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world” (Rom 10:15-18).

There is a helpful word of reminder given by Saint Maximus the Confessor, one of the Fathers of the Church, who was in the Breviary yesterday. I want to rework the order of what he wrote, if only for the purpose of applying it to the times in which we live. But for the sake of respect, here is the original quote:

This Word is most unwilling to be kept under a bushel; it wills to be set in a high place, upon the sublime beauty of the Church. For while the Word was hidden under the bushel, that is, under the letter of the law, it deprived all men of eternal light. For then it could not give spiritual contemplation to men striving to strip themselves of a sensuality that is illusory, capable only of deceit, and able to perceive only decadent bodies like their own. But the Word wills to be set upon a lampstand, the Church, where rational worship is offered in the Spirit, that it may enlighten all men. For the letter, when it is not spiritually understood, bears a carnal sense only, which restricts its expression and does not allow the real force of what is written to reach the hearer’s mind (from an inquiry addressed to Thalassius by Saint Maximus the Confessor, abbot (Quaest. 63: PG 90, 667-670)).

Let’s look at this teaching in three sections.

1. The Problem of the Flesh – St. Maximus explains well the deadening effects of the flesh in coming to grasp the beauty and sublimity of God’s Word, of His vision for our lives. He therefore speaks of those living in the flesh as indulging a sensuality that is illusory, capable only of deceit, and able to perceive only decadent bodies like their own.

We who live in the increasingly decadent and self-indulgent West need to be sober about these words, first of all for our very selves. All day long we are bombarded with temptations to sensuality, self-indulgence, and almost complete preoccupation with the flesh.

We must stay on our guard against the indulgence of the flesh that is so easily available today, lest we soon discover that our intellect is clouded and we find the clear light of God’s vision too strong or “harsh.” In excessive self-indulgence, any call to self-denial seems arduous, even repugnant. In excessive sensuality, any appeal to spiritual matters seems strange, foreign, even threatening.

This is what the Church is largely facing today in trying to preach to an increasingly decadent, excessively sensual world. While these proclivities can be ascribed to the fallen human condition, the tendency to indulge the flesh has never been greater. Almost endless and often instant self-gratifications and diversions are available to us. There are a wealth of comforts today that kings and queens of old never dreamed of.

Along with the onset of this extreme sensuality has come the darkening of the intellect such that some of us, who by God’s grace alone have been spared some of the worst trends of modern culture, often ask with dismay, “How can people get this confused?”

St. Maximus supplies the general answer: [They have indulged] a sensuality that is illusory, capable only of deceit, and able to perceive only decadent bodies like their own. In other words, the flesh cannot perceive the things of the spirit. He adds, For the letter [of the Law], when it is not spiritually understood, bears a carnal sense only, which restricts its expression and does not allow the real force of what is written to reach the hearer’s mind.

And thus the plainest and most beautiful utterances of God’s moral and spiritual vision have little effect on many moderns, who see God’s glorious call to human freedom from slavery to passions as intrusive, limiting, intolerant, and even hateful. No matter how deep the darkness of indulgent flesh gets, it seems that the proposed answer is always to further indulge the flesh. And herein is manifested the darkening of the intellect and human spirit brought about by the indulgence of the flesh. Paradoxically, indulging the physical senses leads us to have senseless minds.

2. The Passion of the Lord – In the face of this cancerous situation, what does the Lord want? St. Maximus says here, This Word is most unwilling to be kept under a bushel; it wills to be set in a high place, upon the sublime beauty of the Church.

And therefore God continues to speak forth His Word. He continues to let the light of His truth shine forth. He has a passion to call His wayward children home. Too easily we act like the foolish prodigal son, who wandered off. Yet his father never stopped looking for him. And when the foolish prodigal son took one step back, his father took two steps toward him and started running.

For just as once the Eternal Father uttered the Word of His Son, and through this one Word all creation came forth, thus this Logos (Word) imbued all creation with the logike (logic) or impression of His will and glory.

Sadly, in our fallen condition, many indulging the fallen flesh no longer love or appreciate the logike, the Logos, or the Father who utters the Logos.

Yet still the Father speaks the Word, the Logos. He has an endless passion to summon all His fallen children back to the glory of His Word. And His Word, Jesus, has a passion too. The Word must still go forth.

3. The Purpose of the Church – But how can the Word go forth? St. Maximus tells us how: This Word is most unwilling to be kept under a bushel; it wills to be set in a high place, upon the sublime beauty of the Church … the Word wills to be set upon a lampstand, the Church, where rational worship is offered in the Spirit, that it may enlighten all men.

As the Church, our role is to be the lampstand on which God sets His Word in order to enlighten all. And, as Maximus says, through our “rational worship” (a spiritual worship rooted in truth) we are to enlighten all.

Our mission is not to reflect worldly “lights,” but to set forth the LIGHT of the world, Jesus. We are to speak His Word, not parrot the passing words or “lights” of this world.

The Church must continue to set out the lamp of God’s Word, Jesus. And while light may bring different things to light, the Light itself never changes. And though translated into a thousand different languages, the Word Himself does not change or mutate.

Note, too, Maximus’ reference to liturgy, wherein we are formed by God unto “rational worship.” The sacred liturgy both forms and conforms us to the truth of God and the truth about ourselves. We become the Word we hear proclaimed, and the Word made Flesh, whom we receive. The Church must ever undertake her sacred liturgy with joy, reverence, and profound attentiveness. An old saying goes, “Save the Liturgy, save the World.”

Yes, the Church is but the lampstand on which God sets His Light. It is God’s Light and it must shine. We can do no other. She is the pulpit from which He proclaims His Word.

St. Paul adds, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God (2 Cor 4:2).

Yes, we can do no other. The world has lately indulged the blindness of the flesh, but the Father has not stopped uttering His Word and setting forth the light of His truth. On account of this we can do no other. We are His instrument; we are His lampstand.

As a kind of follow-up to yesterday’s post on testing everything based on the truth of the Gospel, we might do well to consider that Jesus says, To what shall I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another, “We played the flute for you, but you did not dance. We sang a dirge, but you did not weep.” He goes on to observe that people said that John the Baptist was crazy because he did not eat or drink, yet when Jesus both ate and drank they called Him a glutton and a drunkard (see Matt 11:16-19).

Indeed, this world has many bewildering and often contradictory standards. This is another very good reason why we should test everything that this world says. The world is fickle in its judgments, but the Word of the Lord is tested and true.

And thus the world should not be used to judge the Word, but the Word to judge the world. In the passage above, Jesus reminds us not even to let the world judge us. God alone, with His standards, will be our final judge.

One of the great human struggles is to become free from allowing ourselves to be defined by others, from being so much under the world’s judgment that we lack personal conviction or a deep, stable, serene core.

An old African proverb says, “If I don’t know who I am, anyone can name me.”

Somewhere in the midst of the world’s demands for conformity to its fleeting and ever-changing standards, each of us must come to know the man or woman God created us to be.

Now this does not mean, particularly when we are young, that we should not seek guidance from people (especially our elders) whom we trust. But in the end, each of us must make that very private journey with God that every person must. It is the journey to discover one’s true self, as God gently reveals.

It is to this deep truth that Jesus refers in the passage referenced above. The world cannot be our measure. Too often its standards are passing, foolish, and highly inconsistent. To hearken to its cacophonous voice is a sure invitation to high anxiety and deep inner conflict.

There is a saying, “A man with one watch knows what time it is; a man with two watches is never quite sure.”

Jesus, too, warns, “No one can serve two masters.” But, sadly, most of us try. And, frankly, it is not merely two masters but two hundred!

Not so with Jesus.

Jesus resisted and even defied most of the ways in which people tried to define him. He was the Messiah, but He would not be the Messiah in any way that they understood. He would not ride in on a war horse and usher in a bloodbath. He would not follow a career of conquest. He would die as a suffering servant. Neither would He simply be reduced to being the “bread king” (Jn 6:15) or the “medical miracle worker” (Mk 1:38). Jesus was sure to move on to the next town before others could label Him as such. He came to bear witness to the truth and to save us, not so much from economic calamity, health problems, or political enemies, but rather from our very selves, from our own sinfulness.

No, Jesus would not be defined by this world. He was free from its grip; it had no power over Him. And to that same freedom the Lord ultimately summons us.

To be sure, this personal journey with the Lord, this journey to discover our true self, is not an invitation to hideous idiosyncrasies or sociopathic behavior. Holiness may, and often does, startle this world. But it is not unnecessarily disruptive; it is not simply “weird.” Discovering our true self leads to serenity, a peace that this world cannot give but that it also cannot deny.

So, a man with one watch knows what time it is, but a man with two watches is never quite sure.

Whom are you watching? What time is it in your life? Is it a time of teenage conformity and capitulation to peer pressure? Or is it a time of serene and mature self-understanding, rooted in the Father?