A Triduum of Mercy | National Catholic Reporter

A Triduum of Mercy | National Catholic Reporter by MSW. MGB: The washing of the feet illustrates that Jesus is humble of heart.  He does not impose burdens on us to test our discipline - rather his actions in washing the feet and in teaching morality show that his actions - and the Church's actions in his stead - are for happiness on earth - to be more perfectly and happily human.  He washed their feet, not their souls.  He also showed how our leaders should behave.  The moral burdens put on many of the faithful, from women to gays, show no humility in the teaching of morality.  Would Jesus wash the feet of the hedge fund banksters?  Hardly.  He would lump them in with the Temple money changers and go after them with a lash.

God's mercy on Good Friday is not just to take us where we cannot otherwise go - but to bring his Godhead to where it cannot go except by becoming human and being subjected to the total psychic crush of giving up on both his divinity (by dismissing his mother - who was the original source of the nativity story) and his mission (by dismissing the disciple who he loved to care for his grandmother rather than to preach the Good News). This also underlies why we are moral.  It is not for God's sake, but for our own happiness in this life.  While our culture dismisses suffering, sins are sins because they do cause it for ourselves and others.  The suffering is always there and the solution is knowing that Christ suffered as well. The only requirement he gives us is to forgive others as a mercy both for us and for them.  Mostly for us.

The mercy of Easter is that what Jesus taught was reaffirmed by the Father, especially the divine humility.  It also relieves us of the sting of death - which is the ultimate act of mercy for those of us who are left behind as our relatives and friends have gone to a better existence.  In the story of the prodigal son, the loyal son believes he has it all figured out and this makes him resent any varience from that understanding - a different kind of shock.  This is like those clerics who cannot accept the reality that gay relationships are a gift from God, as all love is - or that sometimes marriages must end (not using sophistry to say they never existed).

When I was a child, just after my confirmation and during the Triduum, I was quite vexed and unconsoleable about why Jesus had to die.  I know longer feel that way because I understand the nature of his mercy - that it was to seek how we suffered rather than being the proxy for our suffering, as St. Anselm and much of the Church taught.  An angry God is entirely unlovable and unloving - and that I could not accept.  Mercy means that I don't have to.