The Face of Mercy / Daniel Conway

Works of mercy and sharing in the suffering of others

Doing works of mercy doesn’t just mean making charitable gifts to ease our consciences. It also means sharing in the suffering of others, even at personal cost to ourselves.

“Mercy” is a consistent theme of Pope Francis, and it’s clear from his many written and spoken comments that his understanding of mercy is very concrete and practical. In The Face of Mercy, the pope tells us that Jesus is the merciful love of God incarnate. We can see the Father’s mercy in the face of Jesus, and we experience his love in all his Son’s words and actions.

The mercy shown to us in the life and ministry of Jesus is not something sentimental—activities designed to help us “feel good.” God’s mercy is substantive, and it can come at a real cost as Jesus himself demonstrated on the cross.

“We do not do works of mercy to assuage our consciences, to make us feel better,” the pope says. “Rather, the merciful person is the one who has pity on others and shares in their suffering. We must ask ourselves, ‘Am I generous? Do I know how to put myself in another person’s shoes? Do I suffer when I see another person in difficulty?’ ”

The Church proposes seven “corporal” works of mercy, and seven more that it calls “spiritual.” All are actions that require us to move beyond our comfort zones and to care for the physical, mental and emotional, or spiritual needs of others—often at some personal cost to ourselves.

Corporal works of mercy are very practical: feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, clothing the naked, sheltering the homeless, visiting the sick and imprisoned or burying the dead. To be genuinely merciful, Pope Francis reminds us that it’s not enough to write checks to Catholic Charities or the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (as important as this practice is to the continued success of these agencies).

To be merciful, we must actually be willing to share in the suffering of others, which may mean engaging with them face to face in very personal and sometimes uncomfortable ways.

Spiritual works of mercy are not as “hands-on” as corporal works of mercy are, but they are no less real or important. Ministries of teaching, counseling, comforting, healing, forgiving, and praying for the living and the dead also require self-sacrifice and the willingness to humble ourselves for the good of others. In the Lord’s Prayer, we ask for our heavenly Father’s help to forgive those who have sinned against us precisely because this spiritual work of mercy is so difficult!

Oftentimes, to be genuinely merciful also means taking risks.

Recalling the Second World War years in Europe, Pope Francis calls attention to all those people, beginning with Pope Pius XII, who risked their own lives to save Jews from deportation and death. He sees this as a very practical example from our recent history of risk-taking in order to show mercy.

Those who carry out works of mercy must take risks, and they may also be mocked by others. Doing works of mercy means being willing to be inconvenienced, the pope believes, just as all the saints and martyrs risked humiliation, suffering and even death to share God’s mercy with those who need it most—the poor, the vulnerable and those who are society’s outcasts.

“We do works of mercy for others,” Pope Francis says, “because we know that we have been shown mercy by our Lord first. We think about our mistakes, our sins, and how the Lord has forgiven us, so we do the same with our brothers and sisters.”

Works of mercy keep us away from selfishness and sin. They help us imitate Jesus more closely and, so, share in his life more fully.
 

(Daniel Conway is a member of The Criterion’s editorial committee.) †