Last Sunday, I asked you to give God room—much more room than you’re comfortable giving him.
I asked you to stop fencing him in. Stop telling him that he can’t fix your problems or mend your life or convert that person.
Also, it would be great if you would stop telling him how to fix certain things. Just let them fix them in his own way.
I’d like to continue with this theme on Divine Mercy Sunday. Let me tell you a story.
My late father was a terrible driver, and as he got very old and frail, he got worse.
My sister and I were tying ourselves in knots about how to raise the issue of giving up his licence—and more importantly, how to win the inevitable argument.
Then one day, as he drove into the garage at his house, his leg simply refused to move.
That meant that he couldn’t tap the brakes and slow down. So the car ran into the back wall of the garage.
It did this so gently and slowly that the airbags didn’t even inflate. There was only a bit of minor damage to the front of the car.
However, it did shatter a horrible old bookcase in the garage that we all hated, so that was a plus.
My poor mother in the passenger seat was surprised but uninjured. But Dad got such a shock that he gave up his licence on the spot.
God fixed it for us in a way that none of us could have imagined. Justice was dispensed—Dad realised that he shouldn’t drive any more.
But mercy was also dispensed—no one and nothing was badly hurt.
This is what happens when you let God fix things for you. He will do it.
It’s manifested all the time in your lives, if you have eyes to see it.
But it won’t be according to your way, or your rules, or your suggestions, or on your schedule.
And this is often where people come unstuck with the Divine Mercy.
They are frying so hard in the hot fat of personal injustice that they can’t bear to think of certain people getting away unpunished.
They claim to be worried about their adult children living ungodly lives. I get it.
But they’re so angry all the time that you can see why their adult children are also avoiding them like the plague.
Some Catholics claim to pray for groups of people who they believe to be the chief causes of trouble in the world.
But they also spend time on the internet devouring the nastiest stuff they can find out about these people and then trying to out-shrill each other in the comboxes.
These Catholics sometimes have problems with today’s feast. They can’t bear to be parted from “God’s justice” for a red-hot minute.
And yet “God’s justice” is really their human idea of justice—very rough justice—dressed up in a sheet.
If they knew anything about God, they’d know that his mercy is exactly the kind of justice he’d like to dispense to each of us.
If he applied his justice undiluted right now, he’d wipe you off the face of the earth.
You need God’s mercy desperately. He knows that you can’t possibly pay your own bills. That’s why he offers to do it for you.
But you have to let him choose the way in which he does it. If you do, then you will receive the most wonderful things.
They won’t always be what you expect. You will probably not get any credit for anything either.
There may be no sudden conversions when the person throws their arms around you and thanks you for saving them.
Your children may not come back to God until their deathbeds.
Those awful groups of people may carry on being wicked until God intervenes at exactly the right moment in each of their lives and helps them.
You may never see this happen. There may never be a great “illumination of consciences” that will allow you to gloat over their discomfort.
Instead, you may have an illumination of your own conscience which is probably long-overdue.
Stop telling people that they really need to remember God’s justice instead of his mercy. They don’t.
And neither do you. Swallow your pride and take your bucket to the well of living waters today.
Ask for God’s mercy for yourself and for everyone else.
And try to accept what he’s already told you in the scriptures, over and over: he would much prefer to be merciful, rather than just.