We just celebrated the Divine Mercy Sunday. We’ve held a Year of Mercy.
Personally, I think we might need a booster shot Jubilee year of Mercy, because we seem to be finding the variants on hate, cruelty, pettiness, division, wrath and rage.
What do we do with the person who is pro-choice? We love them. We offer friendship. We look for how we can work together to make the need for abortion unnecessary, because the world that surrounds the crisis pregnancy, is an adopted family.
What do we do with the person who identifies alternatively? We love them. We treat them with the dignity that God made them with, and recognize their gifts, beauty, and infinite value to God and our lives. We love them.
What do we do with the immigrant? We love them. We take the time to find out what they need, and we provide it…why? Because Christ told us, which one treated the victim as a neighbor? The one who treated the one in trouble with kindness.
What do we do with the tax collector? We love them. Christ ate with them.
What do we do with the person who votes differently than we do? We love them. Christ loves us despite our affiliations with worldly powers, not because of them.
What do we do with the person who is in prison? We love them. We’re commanded to visit and told by Christ himself, that in the end, we will ask, “When did we see you in prison,” and He will answer, “So long as you did this to least of my brothers, you did it unto me.”
What do we do with the person who suffers from an addiction? We love them. These souls manifest in a physical way, the damage sin does to our souls when we pretend we aren’t consumed by a desire to hold onto those sins that we favor with the same fierceness that an addict does their addictive substance.
What do we do with the person who cuts us off on the freeway? We love them. We pray for their families, and for all they encounter on the road, so that we all make it home safely.
What do we do with the person who trolls us on the internet. We love them. We offer truth, charity, and when possible, more, because no heart was ever converted by rage to Christ, but by Christ like witness, people abandon rage.
What do we do with the relative we don’t want to visit? We love them. We figure out how to build bridges where we can, and pray to the Holy Spirit for the knowledge of when we must be the bridge ourselves.
What do we do with the people in our past who have hurt them. We pray for them, we ask for mercy for those who hurt us, and we surrender our need to hold onto our pain. We ask Christ to help us forgive them, and for Christ to bless them beyond what they need.
What do we do with the homeless? We love them. We offer what we can, to resources for them, and we pray for them when we cannot give economically. We give so that we do not have so much excess, so that others may have what they need.
What do we do with…put the name of whatever it is, whoever it is, here. Answer: what it always is, we love them.
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