As I got through the end of the famous diary of Sister Faustyna a few weeks ago, the message was the same as at the beginning. That God is Goodness, and his greatest attribute is Mercy, and that the priests don't preach about that enough. When a soul sincerely desires to return to God, she is greeted with enormous generosity, far more than she ever thought she deserved. Well, I've had that on my mind for some time, because that was a rather large book (seven hundred or so pages, with a common theme) and then I saw the first reading today. Let's take the whole reading, including the two lines they decided to omit from the Mass books:
"God there is none save Thou, that hast a whole world for Thy province; and shall Thy justice abide our question? Punish Thou mayst as punish Thou wilt; king nor emperor can be bold to outface Thee. So high beyond our censure, and therewithal so just in Thy dealings! To condemn the innocent were unworthy of such majesty as Thine; of all justice, Thy power is the true source, universal lordship the ground of universal love! Only when Thy omnipotence is doubted wilt Thou assert Thy mastery, their rashness making manifest, who will not acknowledge Thee; elsewhere, with such power at Thy disposal, a lenient judge Thou provest Thyself, riding us with a light rein, and keeping Thy terrors in reserve. Two lessons Thy people were to learn from these dealings of Thine; ever should justice and mercy go hand in hand, never should Thy own children despair of forestalling Thy justice by repentance." - Wisdom, 12: 13-19
I suppose they dropped the lines about punishment being a part of God's acts of justice because that sounds too discouraging, but this whole concept of the just judge would appeal even to a non-religious person who can appreciate the value of corrective punishment in a justice system. And God is the Just Judge, according to the wise man here, His justice finding its source in his omnipotence, and appears harshest when that omnipotence is tested. In the Hebrew mind, there is always the story of the great enemies of the people, such as the Egyptian pharaohs who had enslaved them and scorned their ancient religion. And these Egyptians were dealt a system of plagues as a result. Elsewhere, says the wise man, the Judge is obvious in His leniancy, His kindness, His mercy. Mercy always goes hand-in-hand with justice and, already long before the coming of Christ, we see the paternal relationship of God with his people - these children of His will always encounter His mercy, and avoid His justice, when they are repentant.
So should every human judge be, also, as King Solomon desired, when he asked God for the grace to judge His people wisely. That is one of the earliest stories I remember being told by my mother as a child - that Solomon had been offered wealth and success, but he chose rather to be a wise ruler and wealth and success followed anyway. Our defining prayer as Christians is the Our Father, and the most difficult part of that prayer is the part about forgiving others' trespasses against us, and yet in so doing we are most closely imitating God, who is almost forced by His own nature to forgive, when forgiveness is requested of him sincerely. And this is the essence also of the main parable in the thirteenth chapter of the gospel of Saint Matthew, which is our gospel reading today
"'...the farmer’s men went to him and said, 'Sir, was it not clean seed thou didst sow in thy field? How comes it, then, that there are tares in it?' He said, 'An enemy has done it.' And his men asked him, 'Wouldst thou then have us go and gather them up?' But he said, 'No; or perhaps while you are gathering the tares you will root up the wheat with them. Leave them to grow side by side till harvest, and when harvest-time comes I will give the word to the reapers, Gather up the tares first, and tie them in bundles to be burned, and store the wheat in my barn.''" - Gospel of S. Matthew, 13: 27-30
He will even allow the bad to grow with the good and sort things out later, for (who knows?) much good may be lost if he were to make away with the bad at once. There is a wisdom in this policy of the farmer of the parable, and it is akin to the wisdom of the first reading - justice and mercy are going hand-in-hand, once more. But mercy comes first, for the farmer will do the just weeding only at the end. That fits in with what Christ said to Sister Faustyna, and what she carefully noted in her diary: Have them apply to My Mercy before it is too late, for then they will most surely encounter My Justice.
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