A key human issue.

In the spiritual life of Catholics, today’s Sunday, a week after Jesus’ resurrection on Easter, is the Feast of Divine Mercy. Although this holiday is only relatively few years old – Pope John Paul II. he established it in the church in 2000, its birth is the fruit of a more extended development of spirituality devoting particular respect to God’s mercy.

The cult of Divine Mercy spread in the twentieth century mainly thanks to the mystical experiences of Faustina Kowalská, who characterized their content in her notes as an insistent call from Jesus to invoke God’s mercy through him for the forgiveness of sins.

The devotion of the crown to the Divine Mercy became famous all over the world, and with it the well-known image of the Divine Mercy emanating from the pierced heart of Jesus in the form of streaks of white and red light spread to all corners.

The theme of God’s mercy is important for everyone, even those unfamiliar with this form of spirituality and even those distant from the entire practice of the Christian faith. It puts the fact of forgiveness in the center of attention, which is vitally essential for all of us.

Experiencing forgiveness is perhaps the most beautiful and strongest experience in any relationship. I have a bright memory of one such experience since childhood.

I was a sophomore in elementary school, it was a beautiful spring outside, and all I could think about was football with my friends. Out of impatience, I had a rage in the classroom, which I expressed in front of the teacher by throwing a chair against the wall. The teacher’s benevolent face contracted into a stern expression, and she said with disappointment that she did not expect such a thing from me.

During the break, I looked for her in the corridor and apologized to her, heartbroken. Her reaction made me feel sorry. She accepted it with obvious pleasure and assured me in one sentence that she forgives me everything.

The intensity of joy I experienced at that moment surprised me. When a person experiences the fullness of forgiveness, whatever the situation may be, he learns something important, even transformative. It is a lesson springing from the depth of the personal dimension of life.

“According to merit, he does justice; mercy surpasses justice.”

However, there is something more hidden in the story of my teacher’s forgiveness. Her favorite student was one of my older brothers. When I apologized, she replied with a smile that she couldn’t be angry with me considering my brother.

Somewhere in my subconscious, I perceived that this circumstance hides a deeper meaning. However, I understood this only many years later when I began to study the Catholic faith more deeply and to learn about God’s revelation in the Holy Scriptures.

With God’s mercy, it is similar to that teacher. The “elder brother” in respect of whom God forgives our sins is Jesus. Because of the merits of his redemptive sacrifice on the cross, God includes us and the whole world of people in his merciful love.

One fundamental fact follows from this – God’s mercy is an undeserved gift. He does justice according to merit; mercy surpasses justice. The experience of mercy presupposes a sense of justice. And only when we get an idea of ​​what we have deserved for our sins can be more fully understand the greatness of God’s mercy.

In today’s world, we often witness growing human demands. English uses the term entitlement to denote this attitude . It refers to the idea that we automatically deserve anything and have the right to various things. American conservative columnist Dennis Prager claims that this is one of the most difficult addictions to which left-wing governments accustom their citizens.

The experience of God’s mercy thus not only develops the human ability to forgive but also teaches the necessary civic virtues, for example less egoism and greater realism in placing our demands on society, the state and each other.

Understanding God’s mercy as an undeserved gift and finding one’s place in his plan is an absolutely crucial human issue.