"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy."
This beatitude is different from the previous ones. In all the previous beatitudes, the gift which the blessed person receives is the opposite of that which defines him. Your poor in spirit, you inherit the riches of a kingdom. You mourn, you are comforted. You patiently endure injury, you inherit the comforts of the Promised Land.
In this beatitude, the gift the we received is like that which defines us. We are merciful, we will be shown mercy. It very closely hints at the golden rule, which Christ will go on in this same sermon to speak explicitly.
We may at first think that mercy is merely a negative precept -- that it constitutes not doing something to someone. If someone sins against me, the way for me to be merciful to him is to forgive him. That is certainly one part of being merciful, but really there are many different ways to show mercy -- known as the works of mercy. There are corporal works of mercy and spiritual works of mercy. For today I will focus on the spiritual. They are:
•To instruct the ignorant;
•To counsel the doubtful;
•To admonish sinners;
•To bear wrongs patiently;
•To forgive offences willingly;
•To comfort the afflicted;
•To pray for the living and the dead.
Those first three put the lie to one particular error that I think some of us may have about mercy -- namely, that mercy is about refraining from ever challenging anyone. To be injured in some way by a friend or acquaintance and not admonish him is not mercy. In fact, it falls quite short of mercy. Mercy (in the sense of forgiveness) is about recognizing the offense and refusing to hold a grudge. But the offense is still an offense. And to fail to observe as much to the one perpetrating it is to allow him to continue to live a life hampered by sin. That is not mercy.
And all of these works of mercy are things that Jesus does. He instructs our ignorance, counsels our doubts, admonishes us when we sin, bears our wrongs patiently, forgives our sins willingly, comforts our afflictions, and hears our prayers for the living and the dead. But in order for all this to be "shown" to us, in order for us to really see it, we must do the same for others.
God's mercy challenges us. Our mercy should challenge others. God loves us just the way we are, but he loves us too much to let us stay that way. He wants us to be more like His Son, Jesus. We should be able to love ourselves just the way we are, but at the same time we must constantly struggle to be exactly who God created us to be, because that version of ourselves is the one most able to receive and reflect God's mercy to others. And of course we should love each other just the way we all are, yet constantly be inviting each other to become more like Jesus.
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