Unfair

The most UNFAIR thing in the world is the Infinite loving MERCY of God…

Divine Mercy Icon (Jesus, I trust in You)

The other day, my second child showed me a scab that he had on his knee, which was a little infected and causing him pain, because it was filling with fluid and the fluid created pressure as the wound became engorged underneath the scab. My son wanted me to help him to release the pressure of that wound so that he would feel better. Luckily for us, this was quickly solved as we live in a wonderful country where antibiotic creams are readily available to us. Within a matter of hours, the pain had lessened, and my son felt much better.

I was thinking of that sort of throbbing aching pain as I was treating my son’s knee. Obviously, for my son, the pain was a physical one, but that is not the only way that we can experience this sort of throbbing ache – we can feel this pain emotionally and spiritually as well…

For me, when I lost my little baby before he was even born, the pain I felt when I lost him was not really for the child that I had lost – part of me always knew he was in Heaven and I would never begrudge a child of mine Paradise – the pain I felt was for the love that I had ready to give to him. You see that extra love that I had ready for him was stuck inside me, and I had no way to give it back to him in those days because I simply did not know how to be the mother of a little saint.

At the time, all I could think was, “How unfair… I have all this love to give and no new baby to give it to.”

I was thinking about unfairness today because so many things are unfair…

It is unfair for children to have to remain isolated at home for learning. It is unfair when young people get sick and die. It is unfair when old people suffer. It is unfair when hard-working people go broke or lazy people make heaps of money. It is unfair when we have accidents. It is unfair when relationships fail, or people form addictions, or we are removed from our vocation for reasons beyond our control. It is unfair when we cannot get into a Church when we so desperately long to worship God inside His Church.

But what I came to realise – as I worked myself through the list of unfair things that were bothering me – is that the most UNFAIR thing in the world is the Infinite loving MERCY of God…

In June 1936, Christ spoke to Saint Faustina and told her, “How very much I desire the salvation of souls! My dearest secretary, write that I want to pour out My divine life into human souls and sanctify them, if only they were willing to accept My Grace. The greatest sinners would achieve great sanctity, if only they would trust in My mercy. The very inner depths of My Being are filled to overflowing with mercy, and it is being poured out upon all I have created. My delight is to act in a human soul and to fill it with My mercy and to justify it. My kingdom on earth is My life in the human soul. Write, My secretary, that I Myself am the spiritual guide of souls and I guide them indirectly through the priest, and lead each one to sanctity by a road known to Me alone.” (Diary 1784).

I read those words over and over and over again. “The very inner depths of My Being are filled to overflowing with mercy, and it is being poured out upon all I have created…”. I imaging that feeling of fullness. I have known it myself in a way. Sure, I do not have infinite love or mercy, but I have a lot of love for that child I lost and I felt a lot of anguish in being unable to express my love for him while he was in Heaven and I am on Earth.

It hurt. It hurt terribly to have a heart full of love and nowhere to put it. It was love for that child – for that soul. I could not lavish it on my other children – it was my love for him not them – I already loved them with everything that I had – this was extra love created with the conception of his particular soul and now my heart felt extra full…

And this makes me think of God. How painful must this love of His must be? How painful His infinite Mercy?

Here He is, overflowing with Mercy, and there I sit, ignoring Him… And so, as I reflect on unfairness, I realise that it is unfair for God to be infinitely merciful… How unfair it is that He must wait for one such as I to take such abundant mercy from Him!

And so, since He came for me to call me back to Him – at the moment of my conversion through Grace and no merit of my own – I close my eyes at night and go to sleep praying the rosary with my little baby saint. I start the decades and as I fall asleep on Earth at night, he finishes them for me in Heaven.

Because I love him and he loves me, and through the infinite loving mercy of God – I have realised how to express that love – how to release it and gain relief, because now, as I pray each night with my little saint, we love each other.

I can show him my love as we pray together – me over here and him over there – separated by a mere veil that separates this life from the next, as I say the words on this side and he says them on that, and God stands between us – “overflowing with mercy”.

And I have to think to myself, how beautifully unfair is that!

For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.