The seasoned missionary, Fr. Bill Gaffney, used to say that a mission preacher could read the telephone book and the Holy Spirit would still get God’s message across. People hear what they need to hear.
Bill’s point was not only to relieve the stress of preaching a mission sermon, but also to remind us that we need to get out of the way and let the Spirit of God do the work. People hear what they need to hear.
What do you need to hear? “You are my beloved Son (Daughter),” would be nice, “with you I am well pleased.” Or, “Well done, my good and faithful servant…Come, share your master’s joy.”
The older crowds that missions often attract seem to be waiting to hear these words. Perhaps it is because they are more aware of the passage of time and the utter brevity of our lives. Whereas Redemptorist mission preaching used to emphasize the four last things (death, judgment, heaven, and hell), I think our modern listener is better served by stressing the mercy of God.
They already feel the burden of children who do not go to church and grandchildren who might not even be baptized. They need to hear that God’s love and mercy extends to their children, and that God’s love is more powerful than death and judgment.
I like a story about a man appearing before St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. Peter welcomes the man but tells him before he can enter, he has to make an account of his life, and it needs to add up to one hundred points. “Well,” the man began, “I helped raise five daughters and they all still go to church.” “Very good,” said St. Peter.
“Five points.” “Well,” continued the man, “I served two terms on the Parish Council and was even elected President.” “Excellent,” St. Peter said. “Two points.” “I was a Partner in Mission at my Redemptorist parish.” “Wonderful,” St. Peter said. “I love the Redemptorists. Three points.” “Hmm,” the man continued, “I coached my daughter’s youth soccer teams.” “Very Good,” St. Peter responded. “One point.”
This went on for long time and, finally, when the man could not think of anything else, he only had twenty-five points. “That’s it,” said the man. “I rest on the mercy of God.” “The mercy of God?” St. Peter repeated. “That’s seventy-five points. Come on in!”
Whenever I get overwhelmed with fears – fear of judgment, fear of dying, fear of not being good enough – I think of the Carmelite poet, Jessica Powers, known also by her religious name, Sr. Miriam of the Holy Spirit.
Jessica was pursuing a career in writing in New York City. She had arrived in the city from a farm in Wisconsin, where, after the death of her parents, she had looked after her siblings and the family farm.
By the late 1930s, everyone was old enough to look after themselves and she pursued her love of writing. Her poetry had been published by a variety of magazines including Commonweal and America.
Before she had taken the step into a contemplative monastery, she found herself sitting on a city park bench engaged in a two-hour conversation with an editor. They were debating whether truth or beauty was the greater attribute in God. She sided with beauty, of course, and the editor with truth.
Many years later and just a few months before her death in 1988, she reflected upon that conversation. She said that, perhaps, they were both wrong. “In the end,” she said, “all we have is the mercy of God. That is God’s greatest attribute.”
The mercy of God overcomes all fears. Mercy whispers to us that all the times we have wandered from the path, that all of our missed opportunities and poor decisions, have led us to the place where we are now, the center of God’s Sacred Heart of mercy.
I would like to conclude with “The Mercy of God,” by Jessica Powers:
“I am copying down in a book from my heart’s archive the day that I ceased to fear God with a shadowy fear. Would you name it the day that I measured my column of virtue and sighted through windows of merit a crown that was near? Ah, no, it was rather the day I began to see truly that I came forth from nothing and ever toward nothingness tend, that the works of my hands are a foolishness wrought in the presence of the worthiest king in a kingdom that never shall end. I rose up from the acres of self that I tended with passion and defended with flurries of pride: I walked out of myself and went into the woods of God’s mercy, and here I abide.
“There is greenness and calmness and coolness, a soft leafy covering from judgment of sun overhead, and the hush of His peace, and the moss of His mercy to tread. I have nought but my will seeking God; even love burning in me is a fragment of infinite loving and never my own.
“And I Fear God no more; I go forward to wander forever in a wilderness of His infinite mercy alone.”