This is the Year of Mercy. And yet, it seems that mercy has never been so needed and so scarce. Our world seems to be populated by a zillion faces crying out for mercy. Our traffic-jammed roads seem to be filled with people crawling in ‘quiet desperation’ (Thoreau).
Is this just a bleak picture or a painful reality? How is this possible when we’ve never had it so good in terms of progress, affluence, knowledge, technology and power?
Humanity was born the day a spark of conscious freedom lit up in its eyes. It realised that behind every face is a person, not just a creature. The dignity of the human person was born. Humanity stands or falls on whether that original spark is shown and seen in every person – an intimate, life-giving encounter of faces.
Alas, it happens too often that, in their vulnerability, humans revert to their original creaturely instincts. They just need to survive. We elaborate theories, build systems, fine-tune processes and exploit nature to ensure our own survival.
Our market economies, technology, scientific achievements, medicine, political systems, welfare set-ups and social engineering are all geared to get us there.
There is, however, one pitfall in this progressive march of humanity – it is so easy for the whole enterprise to become faceless. The market becomes dependent on cut-throat competition and dehumanising consumerism. Politics becomes a ruthless power struggle in its own right. Science becomes a source of technological and blind dominance of man over nature.
If society loses sight of its human face it loses its humanity, returns to its blind creaturehood and brings about its own destruction. It is enough to see what we have done to the environment, our health, family and social wellbeing, morality, international and interpersonal relations.
Mercy has lost its face. It has become a well-structured, efficient but depersonalised system. We succeed to preserve the looks of mercy but fail to see its face.
This faceless mercy inevitably leads to a double-faced mercy. We contradict ourselves deeply and constantly. We are keen to look for life in some remote planet or galaxy, yet we capriciously destroy it in our wombs. We exalt inclusiveness yet freely discriminate against people just because they are embryos, immigrants, coloured, weak, un-productive or simply different.
In this Year of Mercy let us go beyond acts of goodness and restore a human face to our anonymous, broken world
We speak of tolerance, yet legalise offence and vilification in the name of freedom. We pay lip service to transparency while wallowing in corruption and self-advancement. We emancipate women while delivering them into gentlemen’s laps.
We give with impressive generosity to the distant poor but inflict the worst suffering on those closest to us in our homes, offices and factories. The list is endless. The best way to mask our depravity is to call it mercy.
True mercy dares to show its face. True mercy dares to recognise a human face. That is why we Christians believe that in Jesus, God Himself has taken on a human face – not by way of wearing some kind of tactical mask, but by a tender, loving choice. God’s face is the true identity of every human face. He is the divine spark in each one of us.
Mercy is not just offering a remedy to suffering. Mercy is, first and foremost, acknowledging and welcoming this divine spark within us and right in the heart of our neighbour – friend or foe alike.
It is not his or her pain that make a person sacred or dignified. It is the person that makes the pain sacred and dignified. Acknowledging this truth is committing ourselves to it.
A mercy that addresses just the pain, in a short-lived attempt to eliminate it, may help society become modern and progressive. A mercy that commits itself unconditionally to the divine spark it recognises in the face of every person, just when it seems most distorted by life’s pains and fragility, builds a truly human society.
In this Year of Mercy let us go beyond acts of goodness and restore a human face to our anonymous, broken world, starting from our home, workplace, neighbourhood and public institutions.
pchetcuti@gmail.com
Fr Paul Chetcuti is a member of the Society of Jesus.