Mercy Training > Mercy Definitions
Mercy Definitions
Here are some word definitions to help you decode what we are trying to say in The Mercy-Driven Life:
Mercy- When capitalized it always means the Divine Mercy flowing directly from the crucified Christ.
Kind or Kindness- When capitalized it means the outward expression of a Merciful-Heart. A Heart of Mercy expresses itself through Kindness to everyone. (See Kindness not Tolerance below.)
Heart- When Heart is capitalized it means the new Heart we receive at baptism (Ezekiel 36:25-27. If heart is not capitalized then it indicates the heart of Jer. 17:9 which is incurably ill and thus must be replaced with the New Heart. The Holy Spirit dwells not in the heart but in the Heart (II Corinthians 1:22).
Ragionamento Spiritual- Spiritual Conversations from the Heart of one person to the Heart of another. Involves listening with the Heart and responding from the Heart. Sometimes we just use the word Ragionamento. In this book it is the same as Ragionamento Spiritual.
Evangelization- It is supposed to be capitalized meaning there is a Divine Power in Evangelization. It can not be accomplished without God.
It is important to understand the difference between kind and tolerating untruth.
Be Kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle. Be truthful, not tolerant, for they are seeking the Way.
Jesus showed Mercy to the crowds by feeding them; He showed Mercy to His disciples by calling them to Holiness. (Note: To read about our own pilgrimage into Kindness, see the books The Coup de Grace and Search for the Beautiful Garden.) If you are part of the “crowd” Jesus will always reveal Himself as Mercy. If you are His disciple, His Mercy will call you to a crucified Mercy-Driven Life.
Mercy is first an attitude of the Heart, which is expressed by Kindness not tolerance. Mercy is something you are more than something you do. God’s Kindness flows out of our Hearts to all people, especially those closest to us. Easily the greatest full scale war in my life up to my encounter with Christ crucified and Mary at fifty-one years of age was the battle to be Kind to those living the closest to me. The attitude, sin or reaction of our neighbor should not influence our Kindness towards them. Anyone can be Kind to the gracious and grateful. If we want to be like God then we learn to be Kind to even the wicked and ungrateful (Lk. 6).
Jesus and Mary are our examples. While Jesus was being ridiculed and challenged to come down and prove something, He Kindly prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” From the Cross only Kindness flowed from the Heart of Jesus. He forgave the world, he saved the thief and He shared His Mother with us. Divine Mercy is expressed through Kindness in crucifying situations. As Jesus died, Mary stood there in silence, submission and Kindness. She did not judge, nor tolerate sin, rather the Mother released Loving Kindness in the most difficult of situations.
Kindness in crucifying situations.
When in doubt how to respond in any difficult encounter always follow the way of Jesus and Mary and the Church. They know that there is a battle going on in the person’s life. Everyone is fighting a great battle. Whether it be personal from wounds or financial or family or whatever, everyone we meet is fighting a battle. So we can be Kind like Jesus from the Cross, like Mary watching our sins “kill” Her Son, like the Church under attack constantly because She refuses to be tolerant of sin and She calls her own to Holiness.
On the other hand tolerance as used today is not an attribute of the Heart of God and ends in cruelty and often destruction which is the opposite of Kindness. A Heart of Mercy is more demanding than the ten commandments. It does not permit us to disobey the Heart’s commandment, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” How do we love him? By being Kind to him. What if he doesn’t receive Kindness with a good attitude? What he does or doesn’t do should have nothing to do with it.
Throw your drowning neighbor a life-savor not an anchor. We need to exercise the “prince” of the fruit of the Spirit, self control (Gal. 5:22,23). This self control manifests itself in the face of half-truths, not as silence, but as speaking the truth… in Kindness (Eph. 4:15). It overcomes error with goodness (Rom. 12:21). It does not transgress a person’s freewill but is rather like a life-saver thrown to a drowning swimmer. He doesn’t have to grab the life-saving truth Kindly offered. But it would be cruel not to throw it to him, wouldn’t it? Before Jesus and Mary transformed my wound into Mercy expressed through Kindness I would throw the “anchor of truth” to drowning people. They would end up sinking to the “bottom of despair.” When the truth is spoken in Kindness, then it will either incite in the other person the desire to change or the desire to crucify you. To be silent in the face of something which can deceive and ultimately destroy another person is cruelty, one of the worst sins because cruelty is willful.
not an anchor.
We are not God so we must not judge, but Mercy in us forces us to express God’s Heart in the face of extremes in Christianity. This is confusing to some for when they hear us speak or read articles we write confronting the present follies coming from Christian sects they think, “That is not Kind to take a position like that.” What they should say is, “That is not tolerant to speak or write like that.” We believe that leaving people in the dark about the Fullness of the revelation of God found in the Catholic Church would be cruel, though it might be classed as tolerant.
John Paul II was probably the Kindness person of his century, and yet he firmly called us to Holiness. What was said of Catherine of Sienna could easily be applied to him. “Artists depict saints who crush under their foot the head of a vicious animal. John Paul II crushed a century of evil under his foot.” (Introduction to the Dialogues of Saint Catherine) And he did it with Kindness. I wonder what the world would be like today if he had not battled for the Soul of Humanity for most of his eighty-four years!
The Truth expressed without Kindness is a lie; Kindness expressed without Truth is cruel tolerance. As our son Jim says, “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” And that is why we Evangelize: To bring Eternal Truth to humanity through Loving-Kindness. I want to thank Catholic friends like John Paul II, Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Thomas Moore, Saint Philip Neri, and G. K. Chesterton for helping me to Kindly express Truth without tolerance.
We agree that if you can not express Truth in Loving-Kindness it is better to say nothing and just pray. Prayer will change the situation. The question is whether we will spend the hours in prayer it will take to change the situation.