THEOLOGY 4:

• LIVING THE CHRISTIAN VISION IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD:

Harmony with God: Called to Communion

B. Spirituality of Mercy

NAME: E.M. Jamilla

UST – Institute of Religion

 We can truly hear them and
attend to them if we have Mercy
“To hear both
the cry of the • A spirituality of mercy is a
Spirit-filled movement of the
earth and the heart “to be merciful just as
cry of the God our Heavenly Father is
merciful” (Lk 6:36). This
poor” (LS 49). spirituality arises from our own
experience of God’s mercy.
 The spirituality of mercy lives both the corporal and
spiritual actions of mercy.

These are actions that bring God’s mercy to our neighbor

especially the poor and the oppressed, all those who are
suffering.

It becomes a deep spiritual experience when forgiveness

and reconciliation are offered toward our enemies—
those who have wronged us, had caused us pain,
anguish, humiliation…misery.
 As followers of Christ mercy is indeed our vocation.
Correspondingly, the spirituality of mercy that is truly faithful to God’s
call is holistic:
• Integral – everything is connected

It therefore includes the natural world and is not merely

extended to it but embraces God’s creation—the
environment and non-human creatures.
This spirituality is integral, holistic and harmonious, for it recognizes
its kinship with the rest of God’s creatures, the rest of God’s
creation.
Spirituality of Mercy: Addressing the Throw-Away Culture

Evangelium Gaudium (EG no. 53)

• - fellow human beings

Laudato Si’ (LS 123)

• – fellow human beings especially the poor

LS no. 21 and 22

• – with nature/environment/our planet

Spirituality of Mercy: Addressing the Throw-Away Culture

Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be

used and then discarded. We have created a “throw away” culture
which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and
oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with
what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those
excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its
disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded
are not the “exploited” but the outcast, the “leftovers”.(EG53)
 Sawà vs. Awâ
Throw-Away Culture Culture of Mercy
Sawà Awâ
Objectification Contemplation
Consumption Compassion
Maximization Care
Disposal Communion
* Matrix by Leo Ocampo based on the teachings & writings of Pope Francis
Crisis of “Throw-away Culture” (Hedonism)

What is the crisis of

“throw-away culture”
and its Hedonistic
tendencies?
These problems are closely linked to a throwaway culture
which affects the excluded just as it quickly reduces things
to rubbish. To cite one example, most of the paper we
produce is thrown away and not recycled..... We have not
yet managed to adopt a circular model of production
capable of preserving resources for present and future
generations, while limiting as much as possible the use of
non-renewable resources, moderating their consumption,
maximizing their efficient use, reusing and recycling them.
 How does the crisis of throw away culture result into
environmental and social degradation?

a. Throw-away culture and environmental degradation (LS 22)

• In the Philippines especially in Metro Manila many LGUs have

already banned the use of plastic bags. However, though we have
changed the system from plastic bags to paper bags, we did not
change our “throwaway” mentality because now we are wasting
paper bags.
b. Throw-away culture and social degradation (EG
53, LS 123, AL 39)

• “Thou shalt not kill” .... today we also have to say “thou shalt
not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an
economy kills. This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to
stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving?
This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the
laws of competition and the survival of the fittest........masses of
people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without
work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.
 This is hardly to suggest that we cease warning against a cultural decline that
fails to promote love or self-giving. ....the speed with which people move from
one affective relationship to another. They believe, along the lines of social
networks, that love can be connected or disconnected at the whim of the
consumer, and the relationship quickly “blocked” ...

We treat affective relationships the way we treat material objects and the
environment: everything is disposable; everyone uses and throws away, takes
and breaks, exploits and squeezes to the last drop. Then, goodbye.
Narcissism makes people
incapable of looking beyond
themselves, beyond their
own desires and needs.
...adults who seek a kind of
“independence” and reject
the ideal of growing old
together, looking after and
supporting one another.
 Indicators of Throw-away Culture
Pope Francis in his Apostolic wasting of our resources fueled by consumerism and the
Exhortation Evangelii market economy,
Gaudium (2013), in his
Encyclical Laudato Si’ (2015), the practice of contraception and abortion,
and in his Post-Synodal
Apostolic Exhortation on
love in the family Amoris abandonment of the elderly and the handicapped,
Laetitia: (2016) describe the
prevailing culture that exclusion of the poor, exploitation of the weak, and
destroys life of both the
present and future
generations: discarding of genuine relationships, of married love and
marriage vows.
 How does the ‘spirituality of mercy’ serve as antidote to
the double degradation brought about by the throw-away
culture?
 What is the Spirituality of Mercy?
A spirituality of mercy is a Spirit-filled movement of the heart “to be merciful just as
God our Heavenly Father is merciful” (Lk 6:36). This spirituality arises from our own
experience of God’s mercy.

The spirituality of mercy lives both the corporal and spiritual actions of mercy.

It becomes a deep spiritual experience when forgiveness and reconciliation are

offered toward our enemies—those who have wronged us, had caused us pain,
anguish, humiliation…misery.

These are actions that bring God’s mercy to our neighbor especially the poor and the
oppressed, all those who are suffering.
 Pope John XXIII, at the opening of the Second
Vatican Council said that the church must use
the medicine of mercy. The Church must
therefore “proclaim the mercy of God, provide
people with God’s mercy and must allow God’s
mercy to appear and be realized in its entire life.
St. Thomas Aquinas on Mercy

• St. Thomas, challenges us to think a little more deeply about

human suffering, and about what kinds of remedies are
required. If man were only a body, then physical suffering
would be the extent of what would cause him harm and need
healing.
• But man is much more, having been blessed by God with an
immortal soul. There is a suffering that goes beyond his body to
his spirit. There is a poverty that goes beyond a lack of food and
clothing, to a lack of understanding, to darkness in the mind,
and confusion about how to live and find happiness.
St. Thomas will not hesitate to say that this work
of mercy he was engaged in, what we call the
spiritual work of instructing the ignorant — as
important and crucial as the corporal works of
mercy are — was, in fact, the much more crucial.
• The merciful outreach of St. Thomas —
teaching, writing, laboring in study — was done
with complete generosity, not sparing himself in
healing man’s deepest suffering with the light of
the Gospel.
 Mercy: A Fundamental Issue for the 21st Century

What does mercy mean? The term mercy is present

and fundamental in the Bible and in the Koran as well.
Both holy books talk of God almighty and merciful. For
the moment being it can be left open whether the
same term, mercy, has the same meaning in the Bible
and in the Koran. (Cardinal Walter Kasper)
Mercy indicates in the direction of
gratitude for an unmerited gift and
unmerited grace, in the Hebrew language
chesed, which in the Bible also can be
used for what in English means mercy. But
the Latin misericordia has a deeper
emotional meaning than a feeling of
compassion. It says: to have a heart (in
Latin cor) for the miseri, for those who are
in misery and therefore are miserable.
In Biblical and in Christian Augustinian language the heart (cor) is the center
of the human person and the seat not only of the emotions, but of
conscience, determination and responsibility. Thus, misericordia is not only
passive emotional compassion but acceptance of active responsibility for the
miserable; it touches with the heart and also with the hands, opens them to
help and moves the legs to be present where help actually is needed.

In the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount he called happy the gentle, the
merciful, the peacemakers, not the persecutors but those who are persecuted
(Matt 5,1-11).
Living “The Primacy of Mercy” (MV 17, MetM 1)

a. “Culture of care”
• Laudato Si’ mentioned the word “care” 35
as antidote to the times, while “stewardship” only twice. The
double degradation subtitle of Laudato Si is in fact on “care for
brought about by our common home”. From “stewardship” we
the throwaway notice a shift to “care”. Hence, there is a shift
from duty-based ethics to a virtue-based
culture (EG 193, LS ethics of “care.”
231, AL 191)
Cardinal Turkson, president of the
Pontifical Council for Justice and
Peace:
• “Good stewards take responsibility and fulfill
their obligations to manage and to render an
account. But one can be a good steward
without feeling connected. If one cares,
however, one is connected. To care is to allow
oneself to be affected by another, so much so
that one’s path and priorities change.
b. Revisiting the works of mercy today

• Let us not fall into humiliating indifference or a monotonous routine

that prevents us from discovering what is new!
• Let us ward off destructive cynicism! Let us open our eyes and see the
misery of the world, the wounds of our brothers and sisters who are
denied their dignity
• Let us recognize that we are compelled to heed their cry for help! May
we reach out to them and support them so they can feel the warmth of
our presence, our friendship, and our fraternity! May their cry become
our own, and together may we break down the barriers of indifference
that too often reign supreme and mask our hypocrisy and egoism!
“Unleashing the creativity of mercy (MetM 18-19)

Now is the time to unleash the creativity of mercy,

to bring about new undertakings, the fruit of grace.
The Church today needs to tell of those “many other
signs” that Jesus worked, which “are not written”
(Jn 20:30), so that they too may be an eloquent
expression of the fruitfulness of the love of Christ
and of the community that draws its life from him.
Two thousand years have passed yet works of mercy
continue to make God’s goodness visible.
 GOD’S GOD’S
JUSTICE MERCY
JESUS is the FACE of the
FATHER’s MERCY.
Pope Francis,
Misericordiae Vultus, April 11, 2015

Blessed are the MERCIFUL

for they shall obtain MERCY.
- MATTHEW 5:7
 Were not murderers or
SIN OF COMMISSION vs thieves or adulterous.
SIN OF OMISSION They were merely
UNMERCIFUL.
 FOUR OBSTACLES TO BEING
MERCIFUL
SELF-
CENTEREDNESS
Being absorbed in our own issues.
“What’s in it for ME?”
PRIDE
Thinking we are privileged
because we are holier
“They probably deserve their
sufferings because of their evil
deeds.”
SELF-PITY
Preoccupation with our own
perceived suffering
“If they think they have
problems, well, I have
problems too.”
SELFISHNESS
Wanting to keep all we
have for ourselves
“I worked hard for it,
it’s all mine.”
MERCY
is the greatest "relative" characteristic of GOD.

With relation to all that exists in

creation, mercy is the greatest
divine attribute.
St. Thomas Aquinas
Does not need
anything:
Absolute, Perfect,
Self-existent;
with no one
above him and
everyone He does us so much good even
beneath him. when he has zero need for us.
This is God’s MERCY.
 MERCY according to AQUINAS (ST II-II.30.1)
St. Thomas says, human mercy is grounded in a
"defect" in our nature: the defect of human
vulnerability to suffering.

According to
Suffering that
St. Thomas, the Suffering that strikes a person
Suffering that goes
Latin word
against our natural strikes us when he
"misericordia appetite for existence and
suddenly and consistently
life
" literally means pursues the good,
"havinga unexpectedly
yet he meets only
miserable overpowering evil
heart“
for another person's The undeserved suffering of the
misery.
innocent and the virtuous is worst
kind of misery according to Aquinas.
 MERCY according to AQUINAS (ST II-II.30.1)
“The compassion in our hearts for another
person's misery, a compassion which
2 ASPECTS: drives us to do what we can to help him."
St. Dominic sold his
books in order to feed
the hungry.
ROOTED IN RIGHT
REASON
the truth about the
sufferings of others, and
what is in fact the objective
"good" for the other whom
we seek to help

PROVEN IN EFFECTIVE
ACTION
helping and not merely
sympathizing

2 CHARACTERISTICS:
"Since man, therefore, has God above him, charity which unites him to God is greater than mercy, which
relieves the wants of others" (II-II.30.4). On the other hand, when we consider which of the virtues should
govern our relationships with other human beings, then it is clear that mercy directed to our neighbors in
need is the supreme virtue in man (II-II.30.4).
 Towards Contemplation
• The divine Persons are subsistent relations, and the
world, created according to the divine model, is a web
of relationships. Creatures tend towards God, (LS
240)
• It also entails a loving awareness that we are not
disconnected from the rest of creatures, but joined in
a splendid universal communion. As believers, we do
not look at the world from without but from within,
conscious of the bonds with which the Father has
linked us to all beings. (LS § 220)
Towards Contemplation
• "The ultimate purpose of other creatures is not to
be found in us. Rather, all creatures are moving
forward with us & through us towards a common
point of arrival, which is God.... Human beings,
endowed with intelligence & love, & drawn by the
fullness of Christ, are called to lead all creatures
back to their Creator." (LS § 83)
Living “The Primacy of Mercy” (MV 17, MetM 1)

• Laudato Si’ mentioned the word

“care” 35 times, while
“Culture of care” “stewardship” only twice. The
as antidote to the subtitle of Laudato Si is in fact on
double “care for our common home”.
degradation From “stewardship” we notice a
brought about by shift to “care”. Hence, there is a
the throwaway shift from duty-based ethics to a
culture (EG 193, virtue-based ethics of “care.”
LS 231, AL 191)
PAKIALAM - MALASAKIT
 Crisis of Throw-away Culture and
A SPIRITUALITY OF MERCY

ACTION
Applying new knowledge to praise (worship - to adore and praise God),
to bless (morals - to bless God by being a blessing to others), to preach
(doctrine - to share and proclaim faith)…
significantly reduce their usage of single-use/disposable items

Write down five resolutions on how you can

significantly reduce your usage of single-
use/disposable items, and how you can promote
a “culture of care” in your community.