{"id":3864,"date":"2016-06-01T08:00:33","date_gmt":"2016-06-01T00:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=3864"},"modified":"2021-11-26T08:01:43","modified_gmt":"2021-11-26T00:01:43","slug":"151-mercy-is-what-pleases-god-most","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jeffangiegoh.com\/?p=3864","title":{"rendered":"153. Mercy Is What Pleases God Most"},"content":{"rendered":"

For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves.\u00a0When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents\u00a0was brought to him;\u00a0and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made.\u00a0So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, \u201cHave patience with me, and I will pay you everything.\u201d\u00a0And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt<\/span>.<\/strong> [Matthew 18: 23-27<\/span>, NRSV<\/em>]<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0<\/a>\"\"\u00a0<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

[L] The Unmerciful Servant by Willem Drost, ca. 1655. [M]\u00a0The Unforgiving Servant by Domenico Fetti, c.1620. [R]\u00a0The Unmerciful Servant by John Everett Millais, 1864.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pope Francis opened the Jubilee of Mercy, an extraordinary holy year, on Dec. 8, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. The Holy Year will close Nov. 20, 2016, with the Solemnity of Christ the King.<\/span><\/p>\n

The following day, Pope Francis dedicated his general audience remarks to answering the question of why he called for a jubilee on the subject, saying the primary reason is simply because the Church needs this extraordinary moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

The jubilee, he said, \u201cis an ideal time for all of us, because in contemplating Divine Mercy, which overcomes every human limit and sheds light on the darkness of sin, we can become more convincing and effective witnesses.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Then, the Holy Father said something that has the potential of detaining us in engaging meditation each time we think of divine mercy. Mercy<\/em>, he said, is<\/em> what pleases God most.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Every time we think about this statement by the Holy Father, the rather comical story the Lord told in the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant flashes across the mind. In Matthew 18:21-35, we learn that out of mercy, the king forgave a slave a great sum of money that the slave owed him. The figure quoted was ten thousand talents. One talent is equivalent to 6,000 denarii. At a wage of one denarii a day, it would take a slave 6,000 days or 16 years to earn one talent. He would need to work 160,000 years to earn the money to pay this huge debt. The message is clear, the debt was so huge that the slave really had no way of repaying it. As a result, it was a huge burden, something that hung over his head and enslaved him in his twenty-four hour day. In a word, the slave was existing in a human condition that was nothing other than death-bound.<\/span><\/p>\n

In forgiving the slave this irreparable debt at the slave\u2019s plea, therefore, the king thereby set the slave free<\/em> to live a glorious life liberated from the choking burden of debt.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is only right to imagine that this incredibly generous and merciful king would wish to see that this \u201cblessed\u201d slave would remember<\/em> the mercy done to him. If he could remember<\/span><\/em> (that\u2019s memoria<\/em> we are talking about), he would be grateful<\/em> for it and thus hopefully go on to live a life of thanksgiving<\/em> (in other words, memoria<\/em> could then lead to eucharistia<\/em>). \u00a0Remembering<\/em> mercy, the slave might in turn do<\/span><\/em> mercy to others who needed forgiveness and mercy.<\/span><\/p>\n

And yet, in the very next moment, this slave, his memory of the king\u2019s mercy on him promptly forgotten, turned on a poor fellow slave who was unable to pay him one hundred denarii that the fellow slave owed him. Forgetful of mercy, this slave was unable to do mercy at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Gospel\u2019s detailed description of the action of this unforgiving servant is rather comical. Matthew says even though his fellow slave fell on his knees and pleaded for mercy, the unforgiving and merciless slave seized him by the throat<\/em> and demanded payment and, failing to get it, threw the fellow slave into prison. Imagine, he seized the other man by the throat for just a hundred denarii after he himself had been forgiven the colossal sum of ten thousand talents. To heighten the impression of this wicked slave, the translation of verse 28b<\/sup> in the Jerusalem Bible from which we take the liturgical reading is even more comical. It says: \u201che seized him by the throat and began to throttle<\/em> him\u201d. He throttled him, the translation says. The only other place one would normally find the use of \u201cthrottle\u201d is where a pilot flies an aircraft, and he applies full throttle for take-off.<\/span><\/p>\n

When the matter was brought to the knowledge of the king, he at once had that wicked slave sentenced to torture \u2013 which of course suggests the absence of salvation and a life of \u00a0torture in hell fire instead.<\/span><\/p>\n

So clearly, just as \u201cmercy is what pleases God most\u201d as Pope Francis says, an unforgiving attitude and an unmerciful heart is what God detests most.<\/span><\/p>\n

Equally clearly, this scripture is written for the instructions of Christ\u2019s disciples on three counts:<\/span><\/p>\n