Day Seventeen
God is just (he holds Himself and all of us accountable to the natural laws of justice), and God is merciful (his love for the unjust is infinite). Mercy without justice would be dishonest, and justice without mercy would be unbearably hard. Some personally suffer for injustices committed by others, like Jesus himself—or think of Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. But St. Therese is “too little” and weak to suffer in that way, so instead she consecrates herself to Divine Love. Instead of taking on the consequences that others refuse from our just God, she wants to take on the tender love that others reject from our merciful God.
If that sounds like a cop out, Fr. Gaitley points out that offering oneself to Divine Love also requires suffering. But rather than taking a bullet herself for another person, she suffers like a mother who sees her child take a bullet that she cannot prevent. Her self-offering to divine love is essentially at the Cross: to stay with Jesus as he suffers the penalties of Justice for others. Martin Luther King suffered for his fellow African Americans because he was in a position to do so. MLK’s mother was not in a position to lead a civil rights movement, but she could suffer with her son. She could stand by him and console him.
Compassionate suffering, at the foot of the Cross, is what Therese means by the “Offering to Merciful Love.” By staying with Him in His suffering, her heart becomes more compassionate, more loving, more sensitive. That is how Mother Teresa, for example, suffered. Her heart was broken many times a day to see the suffering of her people, but she did not run away. She stayed with the poor, living with them, and allowing herself to be wounded by love. In April 1997, in Mother Teresa’s Home for the dying in Calcutta, I was carrying a man back to his cot after bathing him. My heart bled for him, and I realized that I was carrying Jesus. My heart was wounded by love, filled with tender compassion. God gave me the gift of “understanding love,” as Mother Teresa put it. But it hurt….
Prayer
Come, Holy Spirit, fire of mercy. Make my heart like the tender Heart of Jesus, full of mercy and compassion.