Mercy Provokes Us

By Deacon Scott Dodge–

Most days I pray the Rosary either driving to or from work. On weekends I often pray it when I go for a walk. I make a special effort to the pray Rosary daily and more fervently during the months of May, a month dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and October, a month dedicated specifically to the Rosary. Due to my busy-ness last Sunday, the first day of October, I did not pray the Rosary to kick-off the month.

Monday, after learning about the mass shooting in Las Vegas, I prayed all four sets of Mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In addition to praying for the repose of the souls of those who were killed in Las Vegas and for healing for those wounded, I also prayed for Stephen Paddock, the man who shot more than 600 people from a hotel room high above the plaza on which the country music festival was taking place. I prayed, too, for Hugh Hefner, who needs no introduction.

In response to a scathing article on Hefner written by Ross Douthat and published in the New York Times last Sunday, someone tweeted: “Student studying von Balthasar takes a break to read Douthat’s Hugh Hefner obit… Slowly slides ‘Dare We Hope’ back on to the shelf.” The book by Balthasar alluded to in the tweet is Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved: With a Short Discourse on Hell.

Social media is nothing if not an outlet for one’s passive-aggressive instincts. By way of an indirect response, I posted: “As a Christian, if I do not dare to hope that all will be saved, the person whose salvation I need to start worrying about is my own.”

Tuesday morning I meditated, at least as much as freeway driving permits, on the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary. This set of mysteries, which focus on Jesus’s life and ministry, were promulgated by Pope St. John Paul II on 16 October 2002 in his Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae. As I was finishing the fourth decade and preparing to invoke the fifth Luminous Mystery (Jesus’s institution of the Eucharist), after the Glory Be, I prayed the Fátima Prayer: “Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, and lead all souls to heaven, especially those who are in most need of Thy mercy.”

This year the Church has been observing the centennial of Our Lady’s appearances to the three shepherd children- Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos- in Fátima, Portugal. Pope Francis canonized Jacinta and Francisco, both of whom died as children, during his Pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima this past May to mark the 100th anniversary of Our Lady’s first apparition there. Their canonization made Jacinta and Francisco the Church’s youngest saints who did not die as martyrs.

It was during her second appearance on 13 June 1917 that the Blessed Virgin, herself holding what the children described as a golden Rosary, told the trio to pray the Rosary every day “to bring peace to the world.”  During Our Lady’s third appearance, she directed the children to pray what we now know as the Fátima Prayer at the end of each decade of the Rosary. Her final apparition to the children was on 13 October 1917.

As I prayed the Fátima Prayer driving northbound on I-15 this past Tuesday, I became acutely aware of the enormity of what I was praying for by reciting that prayer. Looked at one way, praying for God to have mercy on those who are guilty of great evil is a scandal. Looked at with eyes of faith, it is a provocation. I use “provocation” in the sense of pro + vocation = for your vocation.

It is by forgiving others that we participate in Christ’s mission of saving the world, which is the vocation given to every Christian at her Baptism. In my most recent homily, I preached (as much to myself as to my sister and brothers): “One of the most powerful ways we transform the world is by forgiving others; being peacemakers instead of vengeance seekers.