The Power of Mercy
Opportunities for Catholic College and University Mission Officers
A Presentation to the Mission Officers of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities
Susan M. Sanders, RSM, PhD
January 29, 2016
Thank you.
I have really been looking forward to being in your company and “back” in the academic milieu that I
left 2.5 years ago. Elected leadership in a religious community was certainly a radical departure from
the ministry of higher education, and I miss many things about it. The diversity, in particular. Because
now, as an elected leader of the West Midwest Community of the Sisters of Mercy, almost all the
people I relate to are white, female, over 60, and very Catholic. And unlike faculty, very few Sisters like
to argue about anything! This is quite a difference from my time at Saint Xavier or DePaul!
But no arguments here today. Just a time to think about the Power of Mercy and how you might be
able to “Make Mercy Real” at your respective campuses. Or what would, in the words of Pope Francis,
a “mercying” campus look like?
First, I will try to begin our discussion by trying to define our terms and look at how mercy is used in
the Hebrew Scriptures and what we can learn from its etymology. Second, I want to present three
different “abridged” perspectives on the power mercy. The “Reader’s Digest” version, if you will.
Third, I want to look to the writings of Pope Francis and offer a three-fold pathway to becoming a
“mercying” campus. Jim Halstead will do this more specifically in his part of today’s presentation.
So let’s begin to look more closely at some of the earliest meanings of mercy.
Meanings of Mercy
Mercy in the Hebrew Scriptures
A colleague of mine in Mercy Community leadership, theologian, Mary Rose Bumpus says that the
Hebrew word of mercy, rahamin, is used 81 times in the Hebrew Scriptures. When used in the plural,
Bumpus says, rahamin describes the mercy or the compassion of God – although really, no one word in
English really captures the exact meaning of rahamin.
When used in the singular, we get a different sense of God’s mercy and from where it emanates:
rehem, meaning womb. So here, mercy is associated with generating life and all the things that are
essential to life such as health, freedom from poverty and oppression, deliverance from death and
destruction, peace, justice, shalom” (Bumpus, MSEA, 2014).
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So the purpose of mercy is to generate and support life, and to ensure that all the essentials of life are
provided – and where they are not, to remediate the situation.
Mercy Etymologically
What can we learn from the etymological origins of the word mercy and is it the same or different from
the word mercy, even though both are often used
interchangeably.
The Latin etymology of compassion is really two words:
“pathos” meaning “feeling,” and “com” meaning “with” or
“together.” So compassion, at its root, means “feeling
with” or “feeling together with” another. Mercy, comes
from the Latin word “misericordia, a word that itself has
two components: “cor” which is Latin for “heart,” and
“miseri” which means the “poor,” the “suffering,” the
“sinner.”
Mercy, then, is having a heart for those who suffer or who
are poor.
In looking at both words, we find an interesting distinction:
that compassion, the “feeling together with another” can
be directed toward anyone. Mercy, by contrast, is having
a heart directed more specifically towards those who are
poor or suffering.
Mercy and Justice
But there is another interesting distinction. Whereas compassion can be exercised simply by feeling
for another, mercy is almost always linked to remediation of the suffering.
For example, Cardinal Walter Kasper, whose book Mercy
Pope Francis read at his conclave and recommended to his
fellow cardinals, says: “Mercy should not be confused with
a feeble indulgence and a laissez faire point of view”
toward suffering and oppression. Mercy linked without
efforts to alleviate poverty and suffering would be what he,
taking an image from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, calls “cheap” or
“toothless” mercy, and something more akin to pity.
Real mercy, Kasper adds, advances a preferential option for
the poor. It advocates for the weak. It protects the victim (Kasper, 146). It does not let things get by
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but demands a response, not indifference or passivity. It means bearing responsibility for one another.
Further, according to Kasper, “Mercy does not stand in opposition to the message of justice. Nor does
mercy suspend or contradict justice. Rather, it provides an opportunity for conversion and stands
above the imperfect justice of our world and what we presume is the ironclad logic of guilt and
punishment” (Kasper, 54).
Thus, mercy transcends human justice, the justice in this world, which is always incomplete and
imperfect. God’s justice, however, is really the hope that our judgment and consolation rest with
God’s mercy, not with human judgment or our judiciary system.
Abridged Perspectives on the Power of Mercy
So now, let’s look at three perspectives that will shed light on the power of Mercy.
Mercy as Restoration
First, I want to look at Mercy as “restoration.”
Let me start by telling an airplane story. It was 1996, and I was returning from a DePaul university
faculty study trip to Zimbabwe and South Africa. The man I saw on our flight home was rather rotund
and short. He was bounding up and down the aisle in front of me – a bundle of joy and lightness and
happiness. Internationally known, the man was a cleric, an archbishop. But when I saw him on the
plane that day he was not wearing a cassock or even a Roman collar. Rather, he was wearing a wild
colored sport shirt. And he was beaming and enjoying every minute of talking to those in the seats
ahead of me.
The man, it turns out, was on his way to a soccer game – the Olympic soccer games in Atlanta. He was
traveling with “his” team that, after many years of having been banned from the Olympics, was now
able to play in the games because of the monumental changes that had occurred in their country. And
many of these changes were brought about by the man who was now my traveling companion.
Here he is at one of his beloved soccer matches.
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It is, of course, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and the monumental changes he effected for South Africa
during and after apartheid in South Africa were due largely to the power of mercy. At President
Mandela’s request, Archbishop Tutu chaired South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission – a
commission that offered amnesty to any South African who perpetrated horrible crimes against
another in exchange for the perpetrator’s public confession of his or her crimes.
At the same time, those who were aggrieved over these many years also had the opportunity to meet
the perpetrators and tell their story to him or her, and to the world.
Archbishop Tutu tells one of these stories this way.
He accompanied a young man to a pit where someone testified that his tortured and murdered
brother had been buried many years before. Standing next to Archbishop Tutu, the young man leaned
over the pit and muttered: “This is my brother. I know those shoes. I bought them for him” (Tutu,
192).
Shoes. That was all that was left of his brother. But Archbishop Tutu listened to this story, and
hundreds like it, as did the other members of the Commission: stories of the victims and the suffering;
the stories of the people who caused the suffering; the sad testimonies of over 22,000 who testified
publicly before the Commission in the mid 1990’s.
This process, personal and time consuming, was born out of practicality and the Archbishop’s belief
that applying the Bantu principle of ubuntu to the pain
and divisions within South Africa. Ubuntu, and the mercy
that was necessary to implement it, would not only keep
the country from becoming a national killing field of
revenge but would also begin to heal the wounds of
violence and murder.
Ubuntu is such mutual regard – “I am because we belong
to each other” – and the willingness to stop the violence,
not by showing violence to another, but by living the
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principle of ubuntu and showing it by extending mercy to others. I know what it means to be guilty. I
know what it means to suffer. Therefore, in the mutual interdependence and human regard of ubuntu,
I will show mercy and forgiveness to you as well, as you will show mercy and forgiveness to me -because as Archbishop Tutu knew there is no future without mercy or forgiveness. This is strong and
saving power of mercy.
Mercy as Entering into the Chaos of Others
Jesuit theologian James Keenan might think the saving power of
mercy this way: as being “willing to enter into the chaos of others”
and help. And different from South Africa, what might that chaos
look like and how might we, through the power of mercy, help?
For Keenan, the image of a merciful one who enters into
the chaos of others is the image of the Good Samaritan.
Here, the Good Samaritan, who is Jesus, sees the person,
enters the chaos of one who has been assaulted, injured,
robbed, and left alone – and for dead.
The Good Samaritan, who is also the illustration of mercy
for Pope Francis, enters into this chaos. As we know, he
does not pass by when others do. The Samaritan
assesses the need and, having established a relationship
not only with the victim but also the innkeeper, assures
both by providing for care and quarter.
What the Good Samaritan has done, Keenan says, is what
Jesus more specifically outlines in Matthew 25:
providing service to others through the corporal and
spiritual works of mercy.
The corporal works – works that alleviate the miseries of
the body; and the spiritual works of mercy that
addresses the privations of the spirit. The effect? Chaos
de-fused. Relationships established. Mercy shared. Help given and received. Mercy: the willingness to
enter into the chaos of others – and help.
The “Principle of Mercy”
Keenan’s Salvadoran Jesuit brother, theologian Jon Sobrino, writing
from El Salvador during the 1980s, certainly knows personally his own
and the chaos of others, at least 75,000 Salvadorans who were
murdered or disappeared at the hands of the Salvadoran government
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during the 1980s. Such violence even came to
Sobrino’s own house where, while he was away and out
of the country, six of his brother Jesuits, their
housekeeper, and the housekeeper’s daughter were
murdered by the Salvadoran government.
Confronting such pervasive violence, Sobrino advocates
for action based around the “principle of mercy.”
Individual – even serial acts of mercy, whether corporal
or spiritual, are necessary. However, for Sobrino, they
alone are not powerful enough to address the suffering – the miseri – of the violence and poverty,
especially in Third World countries like El Salvador. Rather, Sobrino advocates for a “principle of
mercy” upon which all the actions of one’s life are grounded.
In it comprehensiveness, this principle seems akin to the Hebrew understanding of a mercy that
ensures the essentials necessary to sustain the lives of all people, but especially the poor. In particular,
Sobrino would have us focus on and frame our actions around the image of the crucified Jesus. Jesus
is, for Sobrino, the representation of all the suffering and death that crucifixion means, especially for
poor and oppressed people around the world. And what would Sobrino have us do for these crucified
people, these “people of no consequence” as he calls them? Nothing less than “take them down from
the cross.”
For those who serve in Catholic higher education, Sobrino sees an especially important role in this
principle of mercy. Specifically, because universities are places for truth seeking and truth teaching,
Sobrino asks university faculty members to begin to “unmask the lies” about poor people – who they
are and why they are poor – in their teaching, research, and writing. In these activities, so common to
university life, he finds great power. Further, he invites our faculties and students to speak to power,
the truth they research and write about. These, Sobrino believes, are among the most important steps
– steps based on the principle and power of mercy -- to addressing unjust systems that lead to the
suffering, crucifixion, and death of so many at the hands of First World people.
Becoming a Mercy-ing Campus
Now, in this third and final part, let’s look at what Pope
Francis suggests might be a general path to becoming a
mercy-ing campus.
At the very heart of his message, indeed what he calls the
“Lord’s greatest message,” is mercy: having a heart
centered in people who are suffering, but especially the
poor.
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It is easy to find references to the importance Francis
places on mercy. We can certainly look to Misericordiae
Vultus, The Face of Mercy, for example, but there also
Evangelii Gaudium, the Joy of the Church, where the word
mercy appears 32 times.
So from these documents and his many talks, what are we
hearing Pope Francis ask of us about having a heart for the
poor?
First, he directs his hopes to centers of activity, such as
colleges and universities, and asks that they become
“islands of mercy in the midst of a sea of indifference.”
Then, he challenges each of us personally: we can “never
be a mere spectator” of the suffering others. In other
words, mercy requires action to remediate the suffering of
the poor. That is how we can become what he calls
misericordiando, God’s “mercy-ing” presence in the world.
Then, he asks us to make a pilgrimage. But for him, a
pilgrimage is not simply a trip to be made for tourism or
even religious piety. Rather, it is a “step” toward
conversion, to being merciful with others as God has been
merciful to us – shades of Tutu’s ubuntu here. Then, like
Keenan, he asks us to reflect on and to do the corporal and
spiritual works of mercy because he wants us to
“reawaken our conscience, too often grown dull in the face
of poverty.” He wants us to “enter more deeply into the
heart of the Gospel where the poor have a special experience of God’s mercy.”
And finally, akin to Sobrino, Pope Francis adds that being a mercy-ing presence has a lot to do with
getting in touch with crucified people – people who are tortured, crushed, scourged, malnourished, or
exiled, and then taking them down from the cross.
Now that we have some shared general understandings of different perspectives on mercy, what might
you, as mission officers, take from Pope Francis to initiate and frame activities toward becoming a
powerful campus of mercy?
The Pathway to a Merciful Campus Community
From my reading of Pope Francis, I think there are three
steps in the pathway to a merciful campus community.
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They are 1) the pathway of encounter; 2) the pathway of conversation or dialogue; and 3) the pathway
of accompaniment.
The First Step of Encounter. So the first pathway, the pathway of encounter.
Pope Francis tells us about encounter during the Year of Mercy when he explains that “to pass through
the Holy Door means to rediscover the infinite mercy of the Father who welcomes everyone and goes
out personally to encounter each of them.” Encounter, I believe, is the first component of a campus
intent on becoming a place of mercy-ing power.
Pope Francis wants us to go out, intentionally, and find
people who are poor, people who are suffering, people
who are of different races, political persuasions, economic
classes, and religions. People who look different, cheer for
different sports teams, eat different food, or live in
different time zones who speak a different language, even.
Go out.
And aren’t your campuses just the right place to do this?
Go out to encounter people where they live – personally – not as they are mediated through
governments or even the media itself. Seek out Sobrino’s “places of the lie” – places where politics or
economics or social arrangements hide the truth about people who suffer from unjust systems,
policies, and people on a daily basis – and in real and often violent ways. It is from here that the work
of the principle of mercy begins to show itself in the unmasking of the lies.
Encounter. The first sept to a powerful mercy-ing campus.
The Second Step of Conversation and Dialogue.
The second step. Initiate a conversation. Dialogue with
those whom you encounter.
You heard me talk today about the importance of
conversation, of storytelling, of story-hearing, in postapartheid South Africa. I know that many have spoken
about the power of conversation and dialogue.
But we also know about the power of conversation from
psychologists as well. How healing sharing can be for both the story-teller and the story listener. But it
can be very difficult to learn to listen, really listen without judgment or blame. But that is what Pope
Francis wants us to do. Talk. Listen. Bringing mercy, not judgment, to the conversation.
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Michael Himes of Boston College also talks about the power
of conversation, I think, in a way that is especially effective
for campus communities. Himes starts with the premise
that without conversation, conversion is impossible.
He makes this link by looking at the Latin origins of words,
conversation and conversion, and finds that both have the
same etymological origin: In the Latin for both, “con” and
“ver” it is the act of “turning toward one another.” In the
old French, it is about “keeping company with” or “living”
with others. So for there to be conversion, Himes argues, there first must be conversation. And what
better place to learn the art of real conversation than a Catholic college or university community?
Himes has much more to say about the power of conversation in his book Finding God in All Things, a
book that I would highly recommend to you as mission officers.
The Third Step: Accompaniment.
This is the step, I think, that makes mercy different from
compassion; that gives mercy the “standing” to remediate
suffering. Pope Francis tells us that after encounter and
conversation, then we need to accompany those whom we
meet, those to whom we have listened and spoken, and
accompany them from their place of suffering to a point of
wholeness. Further, Pope Francis tells us, over and over,
not judge those whom we accompany.
Pope Francis says this:
To refrain from judgment and condemnation means, in a positive sense, to know how to accept
the good in every person and to spare him any suffering that might be caused by our partial
judgment, our presumption to know everything about him.
Because it is impossible for us to know all the mitigating circumstances that divert a person away from
the ideal way to be and to live, we should leave judgment to God. Because even those who are
presumably in a position to judge others, “sooner or later, will be subject to God’s judgment, from
which no one can escape” (MV, 19).
DO you hear Cardinal Kasper coming through here?
Make no mistake about it. This pastoral approach of non-judgment is a dramatically different pastoral
approach for the Church.
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It does not mean starting from first principles, doctrinal principles, or the ideal. It does not mean
applying these principles to peoples’ lived experience of family, then evaluating their experience using
these principles, and then judging people for falling short of the ideal. Rather, it means starting from
the experience of the people whom we encounter. It means recognizing our shared humanity and
sinfulness. It means walking with to accompany toward the ideal.
Encounter. Converse. Accompany. The three steps on the pathway to becoming powerful mercy-ing
campus communities.
Justice and Mercy
Can you hear here how Pope Francis seems to rely more on the power of mercy than on the power of
justice in his pastoral approach?
I believe, as Kasper does, that while working for justice is very important, most of the justice we have
on this earth, justice that comes in the form of tribunals and hearings and juries, most of this type of
justice is more limited than we think. Misperceptions sometimes pass for fact. Testimonies are
incomplete. Sentences punish and do not restore. But most of all, the victim, except through the
state, has very little voice, very little opportunity to tell their stories, and to be healed.
Yes, there could have been an attempt at a “victor’s justice” as at Nuremburg. But for a variety of
reasons, this would not have worked in South Africa. But more important, tribunals and trials are
designed to focus more on the perpetrator.
Like Archbishop Tutu, Cardinal Kasper and Pope Francis know that “mercy surpasses the cry for justice
because perfect justice is not possible in this world.” The people of South Africa knew this as well.
Would that our legal system knew it as well, especially in our treatment of young black males.
Summary
So what is the Power of Mercy?
It is a strong feeling for and with people who are
suffering, coupled with a response to remediate the
suffering.
Eschatologically, it is the justice only God can render
because mercy always offers the ultimate grace for
conversion. Mercy is the fulfillment of justice. It is
powerful. And it is something that you can make very real on your campus.
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An Invitation to Campus Mission Officers.
What then specifically might your campus communities
do to take the first steps of encounter, conversation, and
accompaniment on your college campuses?
For faculties, how might you invite them to consider
trying to “unmask the lies” about the poor and suffering
in their research and teaching and, in so doing, begin to
take the crucified people down from the cross? Here
venues such as faculty study days, or college colloquia or
lecture series come to mind.
For students, how might you frame help their service
work, travel, and study in the context of the spiritual and
corporal works of mercy? Where might you direct them
toward opportunities for encountering people of
difference, diversity, or of “no consequence?”
For your campus, how might you begin to incorporate
mercy-based restorative justice practices into student
codes of conduct or campus grievance procedures? Here
things like harassment and theft come to mind.
And how, in service learning courses, might you begin to
incorporate the three steps on the pathway to mercy:
encounter, conversation, and accompaniment?
Pope Francis has cast a special spot light on mercy during
this Year of Mercy.
How might you, as campus mission officers, cast a similar
light on your campus communities so that during this year
and perhaps beyond, your campuses communities might
become centers of powerful mercy in the world?
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pope Francis, The Church of Mercy, (Chicago: Loyola Press, 2014).
Michael J. Himes, Doing the Truth in Love: Conversations about God, Relationships and
Service, (New York: Paulist Press, 1995).
Austen Ivereigh, The Great Reformer: Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope, (New
York: Henry Holt, 2014).
Walter Kasper, MERCY-The Essence of the Gospel and the Key to Christian Life, (New
York: Paulist Press, 2014).
James F. Keenan SJ, The Works of Mercy: the Heart of Catholicism. 2nd. Ed., (New York:
Sheed & Ward, 2008).
Jon Sobrino, The Principle of Mercy: Taking the Crucified People from the Cross. (New
York, Orbis Books, 1994).
Tutu, Desmond, No Future Without Forgiveness. (New York: Doubleday, 1999).
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