By David Whitmarsh
Mercy is a dangerous virtue. It terrifies the sinister powers of the world because mercy is a special change agent for love. Mercy undoes years of dark progress.
One of the greatest achievements of love, mercy transcends sacrifice because mercy is where my sacrifice meets suffering at the hands of my beloved. Jesus, while literally hanging from cross, added mercy to His sacrifice, “Father, forgive them.”
My first encounter with Divine Mercy felt like finally finding the light switch in that darkest night. Once the light came on, my life began. I say my ‘first’ encounter because I soon discovered the need to return to that light switch every day.
If you’ve ever taken an honest inventory of your life - emphasis on honest - then you could undoubtedly use some Divine Mercy too.
It’s easy to become negative after self-reflection. Add our propensity for self-hatred to admitting our true depravity, and we end up with a nasty little formula for misery and stagnation. Speaking as one who once travelled those roads, there is a better way: His name is Mercy.
Divine Mercy can touch every part of our stories. We find mercy for ourselves, for our failings or lack of progress and for our excess pride in success. Mercy for friends or loved ones who let us down. Mercy for those enemies who’ve hurt us, halted us, rejected or betrayed us. We’re going to need a lot of mercy.
Thankfully, Jesus tells us through Saint Faustina that His Divine Mercy is exponential. In fact, He said “There is no misery that could be a match for My mercy, neither will misery exhaust it, because as it is being granted — it increases.” (Diary 1273)
Divine Mercy is a currency that grows as it’s spent… now that’s a parallel economy worth investing in.
If you need a mercy guide, Saint Faustina is a bold yet gentle mentor for mercy. Her vocational call from Jesus is the same He makes to all of us;
“How long shall I put up with you and how long will you keep putting Me off?” (Diary 9)
Jesus told Faustina that His Divine Mercy is an ocean, and all that she wrote of it was just one drop. He also said His Divine Mercy is a furnace, and our sin is but a grain of wheat to be tossed in. God indeed sits by the fire, a refiner of precious souls (Malachi 3:3).
Once she stopped putting off Jesus, St Faustina found all three of her vocations. A fellow sister, on the day she took vows, called Faustina unremarkable except “she…looked particularly elated. Her eyes were shining with a strange radiance, with great happiness.” That sounds like a soul on vocation to me.
When discerning the work God is calling us to, we must first have enough mercy on ourselves to accept His mercy. Then we must make room for His mercy to fall on all the people in our story.
We must throw open the floodgates of Divine Mercy because once the battlefield of discernment is flooded with mercy, the dove will bring the olive branch of peace to us, and we can begin to find dry land again.
Finally, Divine Mercy requires a childlike trust in Divine Providence and in God’s goodness. That’s where prayer comes in.
Next time darkness conspires to steal our peace, may we all be quick to collapse into the ocean of Divine Mercy.
David Whitmarsh is one of Tepeyac Leadership's new Career Progression Advisors. Contact him at david@holyworkmovement.com

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