1

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were
righteous and regarded others with contempt: "Two men went up to the temple to
pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by
himself, was praying thus, "God, I thank you that I am not like other people:
thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I
give a tenth of all my income.' But the tax collector, standing far off, would not
even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, "God, be merciful
to me, a sinner!'(Luke 18:9-13)

I. INTRODUCTION
A. Sin and its consequences
Sin is an illness that must be cured. It is brought about by the luring of the devil. Yet the
devil is not alone liable for sins, man himself is free and in exercising his freedom, he chose to
do evil. Therefore man has to be also accountable for the consequences of sin. The Apostle Paul
says that death came into the world through sin (cf. Romans 5:12). 1 Alongside sin as an illness
are woes that cannot be easily shunned. Sin spreads and devastates humanity. In the course of
human existence there have been different traces of the evil- the agony and the misery of sin.
Gaudium et Spes says:

that world which is the theater of mans history, and heir of his energies, his
tragedies and his triumphs; that world which the Christian sees as created and
sustained by its Makers love, [is] fallen indeed into the bondage of sin

The grief and anxieties of the people of God are: the current extrajudicial killings
related to the Philippine drug war, civil unrest in some countries especially those of extreme
Islam (who profess hatred against Christians, e.g. ISIS), human trafficking, corruption in
government agencies, politicians robbing from the people, political related crimes (especially
during elections), poverty and many more that seriously disturb quality of lives of many. On
the one hand, others take advantage from the pleasure of doing evil. Some managed to escape,
while others were caught. On the other hand, there are people who are distressed by them. The
poor were stolen their due so that they are hungry and homeless. Families of extrajudicial
killing victims, and other crime related deaths feel remorse, anger and fear.
In all their agonies humanity bear the feeling of already being condemned. Who would
like to exist if human life is this bitter? Not everyone however felt the need to end ones life to
escape human condemnation. Yet pity those who have taken life with their own hands. Not
everybody carries the same burden. Yet everyone does but in degrees differ. So that in their
differences some people can still smile, some can still sympathize with those who are less
fortunate. Some still realize that somebody can still console them. Certainly we must do
whatever we can to reduce suffering: to avoid as far as possible the suffering of the innocent; to
give assistance in overcoming mental suffering.2
B. The Name of God is Mercy: A provocative statement
1Bryan Cross, A Catholic Reflection on the Meaning of Suffering, August 9, 2009
<http://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/08/a-catholic-reflection-on-the-meaning-of-
suffering/>

2 Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi(7 November 2007), 36. AAS 99(2007), 1014.
 2

In this great time, Pope Francis as he is alarmed by the current situation of man proclaims
a great Jubilee of Mercy- with the theme: Merciful like the father (cf. Misericordiae Vultus,
14) He, and the Church sees this time as the opportune time for conversion. (cf. Misericordiae
Vultus, 19) The Church recognizes the reality of human misery and sinfulness and opens her
doors to everyone who comes, especially to sinners.3 The Name of God is Mercy- in Benedict
XVIs parlance is equivalent to the Johannine Tenet: God is Love (1 John 4:16, cf. 1 John 4:8)
-is the core message of this year. However this statement is so provocative. As it opens wide
areas of doubt and criticism from several sides. Some say that it is too extreme as it is implies the
opposite of the classic Theological-Ecclesiological tenet: extra ecclesia nulla salus. What more,
the pronouncement of Gods mercy puts into certainty that everyone will be saved without even
suffering the consequences of sin (or man be culpable for his fault). It also places a laxity on our
approach of the Person of God. Being so merciful, he can be taken for granted so that one sins,
and returns to God, then one sins and once again return to God. Man abuses for his personal
interest the love of God.
It implies thus, that when we do not subscribe to this lax statement, Gods forgiveness
cannot be so easily obtained. The hope to be cured, for example goes with the common mentality
of spending a big sum of currency, a lifelong time of suffering, strength and patience to stand
amidst the effects of sickness; more so, when the illness is terminal or when it becomes more
severe- like cancer, spinal cord injury, brain damage, and the like. There are only few hospitals
and doctors who are expert in those fields. Often time, medicine becomes experimental. None
can give the assurance of survival. Worst situation is death.
II. WE NEED MEDICINE
Thomas Aquinas must have had insights or comments to our problem. He looks into the
reality of sin in life. Aquinas clarifies the order of the sacrament of reconciliation in the reception
of the sacraments in a persons spiritual life. In the natural order, birth comes first. Then the
infant grows. He then develops and is nourished by food and other necessary supplements.
Sickness is incidental. Because one would only become sick if he did not take care of himself.
Man is responsible for his well-being by taking the right and nutritious food, the appropriate
amount or serving, and a daily exercise and other accidents in life that contributes to this well-
being, so that having done his responsibility the bodys metabolism runs normal. But one at
times, fail. He then is stricken with sickness, and sickness at times comes freely to the person,
without him directly knowing and doing, such as when virus spread and contaminates.
In ones spiritual life, Baptism comes primary because it is the door to the other
sacraments. It is the birth of a person into the Christian world: Gods family. 4 Confirmation is
called spiritual growth5 because it is necessary for the completion of baptismal grace. 6(cf.
CCC 1285). The Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist is ones spiritual food. St. John Paul II stresses

3 Pope Francis, The Name of God is Mercy A conversation with Andrea Tornielli, trans. by Oonagh
Stransky(New York: Penguin Random House, 2016) 6.

4 Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1213.

5Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, III, q.84. a.1., a.6.

6 Cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1285.

the importance of the Eucharist in our lives. He likened it to a banquet. 7 Jesus himself shared a
parable of a banquet of the kings son. He sent his slaves to call those who have been invited to
the wedding banquet The king had invited his friends, and guests, yet no one responded. His
slaves were seized, maltreated and were killed. The king was enraged. He sent his troops,
destroyed those murderers, and burned the city. Then he said to the slaves, The wedding is
ready, but those invited were not worthy. So he called those who are in the streets to his
heavenly banquet.(Matthew 22: 1-10)) In the Filipino Context, the Eucharist becomes an
essential part of life. It is not mere meal, but a fellowship- a salo-salo among Gods children.
(cf. Dies Domini 44) Similarly, Filipino salo-salo which is a meal where everyone is nourished
happens primarily within the family. The Eucharistic Prayer or the words of Jesus during the Last
Supper offers us reason why people must come to the Eucharist to be spiritually nourished.

While they were eating, Jesus took a loaf of bread, and after blessing it he broke
it, gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body. Then he took a
cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, Drink from it, all of you;
which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.(Matthew 26: 26-28)

Jesus primarily instituted the Sacraments for sinners. Aquinas alludes to this by saying
that penance precedes baptism. In the rite of Baptism, godparents and parents are asked to
make a profession of faith and renunciation of sin. According to Acts: Do penance, and be
baptize everyone of you. (Acts 2: 38)8
The Sacraments are in themselves remedies for sin said St. Ambrose, as he shares his
most profound experience of the forgiveness of sins in the Eucharist. (cf. CCC 1383) Other than
the Eucharist, Jesus has given the sacrament of Confession in its purpose primarily to forgive
sins and to restore grace. Today this sacrament is the most often neglected among the rest. Few
people would freely come for confession. Some might have not been adequately catechized on
the meaning of the sacrament and its reception. On the one hand, some confessors hear
confession and approach the penitent as if it is judgment day. Instead of feeling love and
forgiveness, the penitent experiences condemnation. I had personally experience a priest who
would shout and hears confession angrily.
III. QUESTIONS ABOUT GODS MERCY
The prodigal sons brother in the parable questions the fathers mercy. We also have this
mentality today. We cannot be truly certain of Gods mercy.
A. The Philosophical God vs. a Merciful God in the Scriptures
To think of a merciful God would undermine a common mentality that God is infinitely
and absolutely powerful and perfect. Western Philosophy have defined God as a being itself 9
containing all perfections, so that when this God is not perfect, he would cease to be God.
Anything that is a sign of imperfection is a flaw in Gods being.

7 St. John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Dies Domini (31 May 1998), 44. AAS 90(1998), 740.

8 Aquinas.

9 Walter Kasper, Mercy, trans. William Madges (Quezon City: Claretian Communications Foundation,
Inc., 2015), 85.
 4

Now in the Old Testament, God reveals himself to Moses as I AM WHO I AM(Exodus
3:14). This is quite similar to the philosophical idea of God. Now this would not be equivalent to
the philosophical idea rather it means something deeper.
Remember that Yahweh, when he revealed himself to Moses did not only reveal himself
as simply existing, rather to be present there, to be there for others. This time God was
about to make a covenant through Moses with His people the Israelites, who were at that time
subjected to slavery in Egypt, Pharaohs country. That answer that Yahweh gives to Moses thus
conveys the meaning: I am the one who is there for you, who is with you and by you. Gods
name, therefore, is both a commitment and a promise.10
Mercy or Misericordia(Latin) means having a heart for the poor, the miserable. The
Hebraic word that was used for mercy was an evolution from the word Raham or Rechem
Rachamim, Rahamim- meaning womb to hesed, a specially determinative for the description
of mercy. Rechem in Hebrew was used in the Old Testament not only to refer to the womb but
also to the intestines, which are regarded as the seat of the feelings both in the New Testament
and Old Testament. Thus, God as Misericordia must mean that God has feelings. There are
several biblical passages that would testify to this.11
If we solely refer to our philosophical biases on the understanding of God, then having a
God who would have a heart for his people speaks of a deficiency. For to have a heart for the
people presupposes that God should have the same feeling. He must be able to sympathize to the
point of suffering.12 This transcends human thought and imagination. Why would God simply
put himself down for our sake to our level?

The Bible does not know a God, who, in his majesty and blessedness, sits
enthroned over a world full of terror and is apathetic to it. According to the New
Testament, the one who was in the form of God took on the form of a slave in
Jesus Christ and humbled himself(Phil 2:6f). He can feel with us; he is like us in
all things except sin(Heb 4:15). A crucified God was then and still today, beyond a
doubt, a scandal. Such a message is foolishness in the eyes of the world, but it is
Gods wisdom(1 Cor 1:21, 23).13

The basis for this according to Pope Pius XII is the hypostatic union of the second divine
person with humanity, the emotions and suffering of the human nature of Jesus are also the
emotions and suffering of the divine person. 14
B. A Just God vs. A Merciful God
There has also been questions on the relationship between Gods justice and his very
purpose of being so merciful. Why is God so merciful is he taking advantage of forgiving his

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid. 11, 117.

13 Ibid., 118.

14 Ibid.
 5

people so that he might take pleasure from it? Says God: I am he who blots out your
transgressions for my sake, and I will not remember your sins.( Is 43:25) Hans Urs Von
Balthasar shares St. Anselms reflection. He found a way to unify the qualities of divine justice
and mercy that seem to be separable within the salvific will.15
If you are merciful because you are most good, but are most good only because
you are most just, then you are really merciful because you are most just If you
punish the evildoers, that is just because it is so appropriate, not to their deeds but
to your goodness.16

We may say to God: Go pick up someone of your own size! Because God is truly
powerful he can just punish or banish us sinners immediately to the everlasting fires. But
because, at the same time he is merciful and good he does not throw us away but forgives us. We
might think that God is taking advantage of us so that he can sustain himself. Does the devil have
the power to defeat God? When God does not forgive, man continues to do evil, to be a sinner.
Then the evil spirit, not the good takes possession and is at work in man. So that when all of
humanity have been justly condemned by God, then His people has completely turned away
from him and that truly hurts God.
There are actually instances when God forgives too much. In the confessional, he does
not tire of forgiving. Once, a priest shared to Pope Francis:

I need your help. I always have so many people at the confessional, people of all
walks of life, some humble and some less humble, but many priests too I
forgive a lot and sometimes I have doubts, I wonder if I have forgiven too much.
This priest went to the Chapel said to Jesus of the tabernacle-Lord, forgive me if
I have forgiven too much. But youre the one who gave me the bad example.17

Kasper would have us think that we have a saccharine God 18- a God who is truly merciful, a
sweet God. He forgets everything of our transgressions and have redeemed us. But God will not
forget us. (cf. Is 44:21-22)
However, we should not be abusive of this mercy. Scripture itself has said that we should
fear God and the coming judgment. The book of Sirach says:

Do not say, His mercy is great, he will forgive the multitude of my sins, for both
mercy and wrath are with him, and his anger will rest on sinners. Do not delay to
turn back to the Lord, and do not postpone it from day to day; for suddenly the

15 Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Dare We Hope That all men be saved? trans by: David Kipp and Lothar
Krauth(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988), 149.

16 Balthasar, 150.

17 Pope Francis, The Name of God is Mercy A conversation with Andrea Tornielli, trans. by Oonagh
Stransky(New York: Penguin Random House, 2016), 12-13.

18 Kasper, 13.
 6

wrath of the Lord will come upon you, and at the time of punishment you will
perish.(Sir 5:6-7)

Jesus has come to preach and invite everyone to his banquet. Jesus began to proclaim, Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven has come near. The Lord has comforted his people and will have
compassion on his sufferings ones (cf. Is 49:13b) Jesus came and healed the sick, he had
compassion for them.(Mt 14:14) When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them,
because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.(Mt 9:36)
St. Augustine and St. Bernard believed that Gods mercy and justice are
complementary.19Recalling Anselms statement on the mercy and justice of God, he added: He
who is good in both punishing and sparing the wicked is better than he who is good only in
punishing.20 In conjunction to this, the Father has given Jesus, his son to redeem us. Jesus
himself took from us the cross that should be ours, that justice or punishment we deserved. 21
Benedict XVI expresses this reality well in his exegetical reflections of Jesus life, particularly
his baptism. The Baptism that John preached is the cleansing of sins, in the river Jordan. Now,
the moment Jesus comes to him- we might ask: how come Jesus came to be baptized, or is
needed baptism since he has no sin? The answer is, when Jesus descended he took and bore
with him the sins of the world. He took the place of sinners. 22 The Baptism is an acceptance of
death for the sins of humanity.23
IV. CHALLENGES
The Gospel passage at the beginning gives an overview of the point of this review.
Primarily there are two types of persons in the world. One is a sinner, and the other, still a sinner,
yet a sinner who do not recognize himself as needing of Gods mercy. This is why several
Church Fathers, theologians, and Popes and saints underscore mercy as the primary attribute of
God.
The Church recognizes that humanity is in a world where the order of values is jumbled
and bad is mixed with the good, individuals and groups pay heed solely to their own interests,
and not to those of others.(Gaudium et Spes, 37) Values are relative today. Man has no sense of
sin, a feeling of guilt about what he has done wrong because of his pride and of other factors
arising from sin.

Pius XII, more than half a century ago, said that the tragedy of our age was that it
had lost its sense of sin, the awareness of sin. Today, we add further to the tragedy
by considering our illness, our sins, to be incurable, things that cannot be healed

19 Balthasar, 148-149.

20 Ibid., 151.

21 Cf. Balthasar, 153.

22 Cf. Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth (Great Britain: Bloomsbury, 2007), 19-24.

23 Joseph Ratzinger, Jesus of Nazareth (Great Britain: Bloomsbury, 2007), 18.

or forgiven. We lack the actual concrete experience of mercy. The fragility of our
era is this, too: we dont believe that there is a chance for redemption.24

Of course, God is a merciful God. Mercy is his primary attribute, says St. Thomas Aquinas. It is
proper to God to exercise mercy, and he manifests his omnipotence particularly this
way.(Misericordiae Vultus, 6) Mercy is so manifested today through the Church. German
Theologian Gerhard Lohfink said: God cares about the whole world, but God can only reach out
to the world if, within the world, there is a people in which Gods salvation is visible. 25 The
Church today exists as a modern day prophet reminding her people of their sins and asking them
to return to God. To recognize oneself as sinner would be a very difficult thing without Gods
grace.
We have a picture of how the joy of the Father is when we come back to him. Remember
the parable of the prodigal son, when the son had taken his inheritance, he immediately went
afar, then squandered his money. He lived in poverty, he suffered eating with swines. At these
times, the Father did not even once closed the door of his house. He actually awaited for his
sons return.
The son, in all humility had realized that he has done wrong. He wanted to live and
change his life to better. He even offered himself to be a servant. In a Gospel passage that gives a
similar view, which is the opening passage adapted for this work, as it was also the opening
passage of the book reviewed- the tax collectors shame of himself is the very manifestation of
guilt. He felt himself unworthy. This is an attitude, Pope Francis said that is seen in every sinner,
when he returns, especially to go to confession. The very fact that someone goes to the
confessional indicates an initiation of repentance, even if it is not conscious.26The desire to be
forgiven itself is Gods grace. How much more when a sinner is forgiven?
Pope Francis challenges everyone, especially the visible structure of the Church and the
clergy. The Church as a society is divine because of her founder. The Church in general does
not exists to condemn people but to bring about an encounter with the visceral love of Gods
mercy.27 Yet it is also a hard fact that she is made up of sinners. Priests, especially in the
sacrament of reconciliation need to embody Gods mercy and realize that they are sinners.

A priest needs to think of his own sins, to listen with tenderness, to pray to the
Lord for a heart as merciful as his, and not to cast the first stone because he, too,
is a sinner who needs to be forgiven. He needs to try to resemble God in all his
mercy.28

24 Pope Francis, 16.

25 Gerhard Lohfink, No Irrelevant Jesus , trans. Linda M. Maloney (Quezon City: Claretian
Communications Foundation, Inc., 2016), 88.

26 Pope Francis, 35.

27 Ibid., 52.

28 Ibid., 44.
 8

St. John Marie Vianney secret is being a good confessor is found in his words, which I read
somewhere before: If I am a good confessor, it is because I am a great sinner.
These are also the challenge to the rest of Gods children who have squandered away:
Furthermore, we must not be content to live as sinners. If we continue to be sinners, then our life
will be all misery. For sin is a separation from God is itself more miserable than all of our
sufferings. We consider God as a Father, even a mother, a brother, a friend, a family. Filipinos are
known because of the close family ties and of their good and exemplary filial relationships.
Moreover, Filipinos are resilient over problems. Give them all kinds of problems and there is an
ocean of solutions. What is most grievous for us is the loss of a loved one. Our Heavenly Father
feels the same way.
We must be perfect as the Father is, be merciful as the Father is. (Lk 6: 36, cf.
Misericordiae Vultus, 13) We are called now and again and again to embody within ourselves
this mercy. Be a sign of Gods love to everyone. To strive not to sin, to strive to salvation, is the
only way we can pay what we owe God. What is peculiar is that God has given us freedom. He
offers us mercy, yet mercy only comes to those who recognize they need it. Gerhard Lohfink
commented: Jesus did, in fact, die for everyone and not for a limited number of people.
Obviously, but in fact he only redeemed those who permit themselves to be redeemed.29

29 Lohfink, 87.