Saint Pope John Paul II established the Sunday after Easter
as Divine Mercy Sunday. God’s mercy is
incomprehensible, a true mystery. Why
would God, who has no need for humanity, suffer and die for our redemption,
despite our many faults and failings? Regardless
of our apathy, our sins of omission and commission, and even though we may have
cultivated a life of selfish pursuit, obsessed with our own importance, Our
Lord sacrificed Himself to redeem us!
God’s Mercy is impossible to understand, and yet we know that He
intervened in human history, suffered, died, was buried, and then rose from the
dead… all for us.
Although we do not deserve such immense love and mercy, God
not only reaches out to us in love, He accomplished our salvation with His own
blood, sweat, and tears. In doing so He
demonstrated the extent of divine mercy and set an example of what it means to
love so completely that no sacrifice is too great on behalf of our beloved. During His short public ministry Jesus
demonstrated the love and mercy of God over and over again, curing the ill,
forgiving sins, and reaching out to sinners.
At the same time, He was quick to call out hypocrisy, and unafraid to
upset the customs and conventions of religious leaders who were more concerned
about the details of the law than the people themselves. In short, Jesus embodied not only God’s
mercy, but His justice as well. The
Pharisees of Jesus’ time were all about justice under the law, but lacked the
virtue of mercy. In many ways, there
were spiritually immature, calling on God to destroy their enemies, giving
themselves excuses to divorce women when they lost interest, and punishing
people severely for legal infractions. The
Scribes and Pharisees were quick to criticize Jesus for healing on the Sabbath,
for dining with tax collectors, and for forgiving sinners, even an adulterer. Their concept of Justice was legalistic and
they assumed that God punished people in this life for their sins, even taking
out His wrath on their descendants. Jesus taught a more mature spirituality in
which we pray for our enemies and we exercise mercy and forgiveness for
sinners.
Justice without mercy is nothing more than dictatorship. On
the other hand, Mercy without Justice is merely coddling, and no mercy at
all. God’s mercy is also just. Yes, He saves us, despite our sinfulness, and
there is nothing we can do to attain our salvation, other than believe in Him,
but He is also just. The word justice is often confused with fairness
and the notion that everyone should be treated the same. However, at the root of justice is the
concept of human dignity. Every single
person deserves to be treated with dignity and respect because they have been
uniquely created by God. God is Just
because He loves us unconditionally and treats each person justly. This is the right thing to do, it is righteous to treat every person with
respect. The term social justice is often misunderstood and confused with
charity. We should all be concerned
about the poor, Jesus certainly was. We
should approach the difficult problem of poverty with both mercy and justice,
treating every person respectfully, justly, and mercifully, but good intentions
often go astray when charity results in hurting the very people in need.
President Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty in 1965, when
the poverty rate was 18%. after nearly 50
years and $15 trillion spent on anti-poverty programs, we’ve done more harm
than good, and the poverty rate remains over 15%. We’ve lost the war and created an entire
class of people who depend on government assistance, rather than on
themselves. This may sound harsh, but
the fact is that there are more people living in poverty now, than ever before
in our nation’s history, 50 million in all.
Ironically, the reasons for poverty are well-known and understood by
those who have studied the causes carefully, but this information is never
publicized. Numerous studies have been
conducted by social scientists in an effort to understand the causes of
poverty, and importantly, the effect of anti-poverty programs.* Here’s
what they found and documented, over and over again in study after study. The more welfare benefits people receive:
·
The fewer hours they worked
·
The less money they earned
·
The more likely they were to divorce and remain
single
In other words, the anti-poverty programs discouraged the
very behaviors that prevent poverty and encouraged the behaviors that result in
poverty. The same studies documented the
behaviors that almost certainly prevent poverty:
·
Finish High School
·
Get a job
·
Get married and stay married
·
Don’t have children until getting married
Despite almost 50 years of failed efforts, our current
anti-poverty programs continue to discourage people who are receiving welfare
benefits from working or getting married.
Under our current welfare programs, for every dollar a poor person earns
from working, they lose 80 cents or more in welfare benefits. Single parents are discouraged from getting
married because they will lose benefits, and our tax code penalizes married
couples in a dozen different ways.
An old adage comes to mind: “Give a person a fish and you
feed him for a day. Teach a person to
fish and you feed him for the rest of his life.” Our current anti-poverty programs discourage marriage
and development of the virtue of self-reliance.
Our government spends approximately $1 Trillion a year on these programs
and they are a miserable failure. Every
good parent knows that spoiling a child will impede the likelihood of their
success as adults. Although emotionally demanding
,good parents teach their children the importance of personal responsibility
and a good work ethic. Because we love
our children, we treat them with Justice and Mercy, teaching them valuable
lessons by rewarding their efforts and successes, and helping them learn from
their failures. Our government does the
opposite with its “income equality” programs wherein those who have worked hard
and succeeded are punished with regressive taxes, and those who are trapped in
poverty are discouraged from improving their lot in life.
Our merciful Lord calls us to feed the hungry and care for
the poor. He certainly would not want us
to trap anyone in the cycle of poverty, but rather help people help
themselves. If we really care for people
and respect them, we will re-think the way we approach poverty and address the
real causes. That means encouraging
marriage and family, demanding that everyone complete their education, and
creating incentives to work, rather than disincentives. This would be both Just and Merciful.
*For a summary of these studies see, “Welfare: The Political Economy of Welfare Reform in
the United States” by Martin Anderson
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