John
6:37-40
God's Divine Justice and Mercy
by Rev. Robert Wagner
Reprinted with permission of "The Arlington Catholic
Herald"
Home Page
To Sunday Gospel Reflections Index
John wrote to show that Christ was
the Messiah, the Divine Son of God.
Jesus
said to the crowds: "Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I
will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to
do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will
of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but
that I should raise it on the last day. For this is the will of my Father,
that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I
shall raise him up on the last day."
The
Commemoration for the Faithful Departed — more commonly known as All Souls Day —
falls on a Sunday this year. The church offers the option to use any of the
readings it sets aside for Masses for the deceased, one of which is a beautiful
passage from the sixth chapter of John's Gospel. In it, we hear Jesus say, “For
this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in
Him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day” (cf. Jn 6:40).
As Christians, this is the origin of our joy, for our Father in heaven desires
that we gain eternal life with Him in heaven.
This
passage is also a contradiction for those who only see God through the lens of
His justice. Such a view offers a distortion of God: He creates us, gives us a
list of commands, and then rewards us solely based on how well we follow those
commands. In this view, God is limited to being a disinterested judge, coldly
calculating each one of our actions in order to weigh whether we will enter
heaven when we die. In contrast, this passage from St. John offers a more
complete understanding of our heavenly Father. He is not distant and
calculating. He loves us and desires our salvation that we might spend eternity
in loving union with Him . In that love He offers us mercy, forgiving our sins
when we are contrite of heart and willing to convert our lives.
Of
course, we can also make the mistake of going to the other extreme by ignoring
the justice of God by only recognizing His mercy. With this view, the words of
Jesus in this Gospel are interpreted to mean that, because God desires that all
of us get to heaven, everyone does, no matter how he or she acted while on
earth, including whether contrition and conversion were part of their lives.
Such a view must ignore Christ's teaching about hell and the wide road that
leads there (e.g., Mt 7:13), but even ignoring the word of God would still leave
us to oppose our natural understanding of justice. We expect each other to
receive what we deserve, so we expect one who freely chooses to live an
unrepentant life of selfishness and grave sin would not merit the same as
another who freely chooses a life of continued contrition and conversion while
seeking to serve God and neighbor.
Ultimately,
our understanding of God must include both justice and mercy. God is not an
uncaring judge, nor is He blind to good and evil. No, He offers us perfect truth
and love concerning our actions on earth. As humans, we cannot presume to know
the mind of God, especially concerning our salvation and the salvation of
others. We cannot judge as God does, for our knowledge of ourselves and others
is limited, but God looks into the hearts of men (e.g., cf. Lk 16:15). Nor can
we love as God loves; our selfishness stains the purity of our love, but God is
perfect love (cf. 1 Jn 4:8).
On
All Souls Day, the church prayerfully intercedes for and remembers those who
have gone before us but who are not yet in the heavenly presence of the Holy
Trinity. These are the souls in purgatory. Purgatory itself is a combination of
God's divine justice and mercy. His justice does not permit those with hearts
made impure by their free choice of sin to come directly before the perfect
purity of the Holy Trinity. Yet His mercy allows for those same souls to have a
means of purification to prepare them to come face to face with God, and having
been purified, enter more fully into the mysteries of His love. May the grace of
Jesus Christ impel us always to pray for those who have passed from this life,
trusting that in God’s mercy He will purify the just that they may enter into
His joy. We pray for ourselves, too, that we may be numbered among the elect and
enter into that same joy one day.
Our
limited knowledge does not allow us the certainty of knowing which of the
faithful departed are enjoying the fullness of heaven, aside from the canonized
saints recognized by the church. Therefore, out of justice and mercy, we pray
that those who have gone before us will soon be granted the eternal rest and the
perpetual light of heaven.
Top
Home Page
To Sunday Gospel Reflections Index