Unabashed Mercy

Vocations stories in all their varieties and drama are a real testimony of God’s grace (and here we have a plethora!) Anyone who lives the consecrated life, is aspiring to the priesthood, or lives a life of dedicated service to the Church will point to one, common, living source and reason for their allotted path… God’s grace-filled call! Of all the remarkable ‘calls’ in history, Saint Matthew’s own vocation remains a veritable proof, fit for our times, of Christ’s all-embracing mercy. As the notorious tax-collector got up from his bench, leaving all wealth and relinquishing his power over others, he was not only embarking on an unknown adventure with the Savior, he was taking the first steps of his own ‘salvation story.’ That immediate response to Christ inaugurated a life of transformation – from disciple, to apostle, then evangelist. The initial grace to ‘turn from sin’ was truly an act of God’s mercy – the same mercy that brought him to salvation and through him, manifested divine, redeeming love to all ends of the earth. God’s mercy extended to ‘public’ sinners, as seen in the Gospels, has a unique splendor, for in it we see clearly the magnanimity of Christ’s Heart. And yet for each of us, sinners that we are, this mercy is no less potent, no less purifying. St. Therese (whose feast day is not far off!) in all her amazingly real holiness, spoke profusely of the mercy of God. In her simplicity and ‘groundedness’ she KNEW that it was by God’s grace that she was the person she was. She wrote some striking lines in her autobiography that Saint Matthew himself could have penned… “I know how he loved the prodigal son, I have heard his words to St. Mary Magdalene, to the woman taken in adultery, and to the woman of Samaria. No, no one could frighten me, for I know what to think about his love and his mercy.”