King David— and Pope Francis— teach us how to acquire“ wisdom in my secret heart.”
MERCIFUL LIKE THE FATHER
PSALMS
OF
MERCY
King David— and Pope Francis— teach us how to acquire“ wisdom in my secret heart.”
Dr. Peter Williamson
When Pope Francis sets out to explain
God’ s mercy from the Bible in his 2015 bull Misericordiae Vultus( The Face of Mercy), he begins with the Psalms:“ In a special way the Psalms bring to the fore the grandeur of his merciful action.” The Holy Father proceeds to highlight a few aspects of God’ s mercy as they are reflected in the Psalms.
He begins with God’ s merciful nature in Psalm 103. The Old Testament often describes God as“ patient and merciful,” or as the Revised Standard Version puts it, God is“ slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love”( Ps 103:8). Throughout the history of salvation, the Holy Father tells us, God makes“ his goodness prevails over punishment and destruction.” In the words of the psalmist,“ He forgives all your iniquity, he heals all your diseases, he redeems your life from the pit, he crowns you with steadfast love and mercy”( Ps 103:3-4).
Next, Pope Francis points out that the expression of God’ s mercy in the lives of human beings is very concrete:“ He executes justice for the oppressed; he gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down.... The Lord watches over the sojourners, he upholds the widow and the fatherless; but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin”( Ps 146:7-9). The concrete ways God shows mercy can guide our practice of mercy, as well.
Mercy Is Masculine and Feminine
The pope probes the motives that impel God’ s mercy forward: God“ reveals his love as of that of a father or a mother, moved to the very depths out of love for their child. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that this is a visceral love. It gushes forth from the depths naturally, full of tenderness and compassion, indulgence and mercy.” Here the Holy Father draws upon the teaching of St. John Paul II in Dives in Misericordia( Rich in Mercy) where he explains the Bible’ s rich vocabulary of mercy.
Two Hebrew words commonly translated as“ mercy” are hesed and rahamim. Pope John Paul explains: While hesed highlights the marks of fidelity to self and of‘ responsibility for one’ s own love’( which are in a certain sense masculine characteristics), rahamim, in its very root, denotes the love of a mother( rehem = mother’ s womb). From the deep and original bond— indeed the unity— that links a mother to her child there springs... a particular love...
“ The words translated‘ sin’ from both Hebrew and Greek are drawn from the vocabulary of archery, where they mean to‘ miss the target.’”
that it is completely gratuitous, not merited, and that... constitutes an interior necessity: an exigency of the heart. It is, as it were, a‘ feminine’ variation of the masculine fidelity to self, expressed by hesed.... Rahamim [ expresses ] a whole range of feelings, including goodness and tenderness, patience and understanding, that is, readiness to forgive.
The Old Testament often uses rahamim to speak of God( e. g., Deut 30:3; Is 14:1; 30:18). The Vulgate uses the expression viscera misericordiae to translate the emotional depth of this visceral mercy.
“ His Mercy Endures Forever”
Returning to Misericordiae Vultus, Pope Francis turns next to Psalm 146, which repeats the refrain,“ For his mercy endures forever,” in every verse. This phrase teaches the absolute constancy of God’ s mercy through all of human history and into eternity.
The psalm begins with God’ s mercy manifest first in creation, then in the deliverance from Egypt, and finally in bestowing on Israel the land of Canaan. Jewish tradition refers to this psalm as the“ Great Hallel,” and it is likely that this is the hymn that Jesus sang with his disciples at the conclusion of his final Passover meal( Mt 26:30).
The pope writes,“ While he was instituting the Eucharist as an everlasting memorial of himself and his paschal sacrifice, he symbolically placed this supreme act of revelation in the light of his mercy. Within the very same context of mercy, Jesus entered upon his
6 Sacred Heart Major Seminary | Mosaic | Spring 2016