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God could have created a perfect world. He could have arranged things so as to prevent us from falling into the pit by our sinful, despicable actions. He’s all powerful, after all. This would have been so easy for God. But that’s not how He decided to do things. He decided to preserve our free will, to solicit our love and obedience, risking not receiving the honor and regard due to Him. We fall many times, we fall again and again. In fact, it could be called an eternal let-down by us, the creature, in reference to the Creator.

One of the most liberating gifts that we can receive from the Heart of our Heavenly Father and Jesus, our Savior, is the free gift of mercy. But do you sometimes find yourself struggling to receive this gift? I mean really receive, in the innermost depth of your being with unshakable certainty?

In the Anáhuac Valley of Mexico, on a barren hill called Tepeyac, Our Lady of Guadalupe came as a “merciful Mother,” a healer and restorer of all who are broken in body and in spirit. It is an amazing thought to consider that the “woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars” would place her feet upon the bloodstained soil of a nation’s festering woundedness.

Our Lord said to St. Faustina: “When I come to a human heart in Holy Communion, my hands are full of all kinds of graces which I want to give to the soul, but souls do not even pay attention to me. They leave me to myself and busy themselves with other things … they treat me as a dead object” (Diary 1385).

At all times and in all places, God draws near to us. Do we recognize Him as He approaches us in our busy everyday lives?

The Church continues to invite us to reflect anew on the beautiful mystery of God’s mercy. We see God’s mercy in all aspects of our life: our birth, our initiation into His Church, the life of grace in our souls, His healing when we fall, His powerful love in the Eucharist, His call to holiness and union with Him, His invitation to express our love for Him through our service of His children, etc. Everything is mercy!

Jesus invites us all to a reach a very high bar. He asks to act as God acts. We are to be merciful as God is merciful. That is a very high bar to reach. How is God merciful? Luke tells us “He Himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” To more clearly understand, we can reflect upon the etymology of the word “mercy.”