the book of mercy

image from here

We were at Friendly's. Home from college, old high school buddies. Maybe we were a little too loud, a little too boisterous. The waitress had been rude the whole meal, was slow with the orders and the water, though the place was empty. When it came time to pay we thought to shortchange her on the tip but one of my friends put in extra, more than what was even normal. When asked why she said, "Maybe the waitress was having a bad day."

Mercy--

Old man and his dog, fresh from the groomer's, weathered face, flannel and Levis: farm uniform. At the end of the leash he's holding is a little tan and white dog with a bow on its neck, wagging his little tail furiously. The man says its name is Larry. He bought Larry from the local rescue after his last dog died. It was his first rescue. Larry had been abused in his old life, bullets still lodged under his skin, but you can't see them now, only the bow on his collar and the way his tongue hangs out the side of his mouth when you pet him.

Mercy--

High school friend, known him since middle school, all of us going through all the awkward and angsty teen years together, is killed in Afghanistan. Everyone in three towns shows up to line the streets from the local base where his family received his body and back here, keep him company on the last drive home. At his wake and funeral the place is packed and there are so many people standing, being there, they had to close off the roads.

Miles and miles of mercy--




Sometimes I miss it; caught up in the daily I miss it all around me. The air is thick with it, the blood runs with it, and it's only when I've been stopped, and kneel and over all the heads I see the bread that's really the Body and that's when I sense it. 

His heart beats mercy. mercy. mercy. 

And how come I can see it all around me, but not in me? Why is it easier for me to give mercy than to receive it?

Saint Catherine of Siena says it's like a scar, this thing that's wrong with us, that keeps us from living the full-of-grace life. Jesus drank of the "bitter medicine" when we couldn't and so destroyed "the stain of Adam's sin" by His blood. But the mark remained, the scar over a healed wound, the inclination to sin.

Baptized, we are dosed with so much grace that our souls are marked as His. That them that can see these things can see Whose we are. But we still have a choice, always the choice, to receive or to turn away from the grace upon grace He wants to give.

Why do I resist? Why do I keep my fist closed instead of open?

So many 'why's that I begin to wonder if I'm asking the wrong questions. That maybe it's not about the 'why' but the yes. The fiat.

It's not an intangible thing. When Christ gave us mercy he gave us blood and water - the very stuff of life, of earth. We are made of mercy.

And could it be that the most natural thing I could do is to say yes, give yes? 

Yes, to waiting for the call to marriage.
Yes, to the job offer a thousand miles away.
Yes, to the little brother who wants yet another ride.
Yes, to saying goodbye to my beloved grandfather.
Yes, to the slow goodbye to my abuela.
Yes, to the rain and the sunshine alike.

Fiat mihi.
Fiat lux.