Remembering God’s Mercy

1. Mary’s faith

At the Anunciation, the Angel Gabriel said to Mary, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women…” The Angel was asking Mary’s consent and cooperation in the great mystery of divine power and mercy. Since Eve and until our Lord first spoke, no word more meritorious and full of promise of joy, was pronounced by a human being than Mary’s act of faith: “Be it done unto me according to your word.”

Certainly, Mary knew what she was entering into; she knew God was using her to accomplish his plan of salvation in his mercy towards humanity. For she acknowledged in her Magnificat, “God has come to help of his servant Israel, for he has remembered his promise of mercy.”

2. Man’s fall and God’s promise of salvation

God made man in his image and likeness, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity. Only man has been called to share in divine life and life forever. But man sinned. And yet after his fall, man was not abandoned by God. He might have lost everything because of sinning, except God’s mercy. In his steadfast love and faithfulness, God called man again and gave him the promise of restoration, the promise of a Redeemer.

We read of this promise in Genesis: A Messiah and Redeemer would be born of a Woman, and a war would be waged between her and the serpent, but a descendant of hers would have the final victory. Mary is that woman.

3. God’s mindfulness of his promise

God has always been mindful of his promise of redeeming mankind from sin. To work his plan, he chose the people of Israel as his instruments. He made covenants with Abraham, Moses and David, and through these covenants, he showed his great love and mercy for his chosen people. “I will be your God, and you will be my people.”

God’s covenant with the people of Israel through Moses was crystallized after their great deliverance from their slavery in Egypt. For many, many years, the Israelites, as slaves of the Egyptians, were like “dead people”. God made them “live again” when, in his great mercy and mindful of his promises, he led them out of that land of bondage. The Exodus-event typifies what the great sacrifice of Jesus, son of Mary, would effect in the lives of fallen humanity. Man has become a slave of sin, and Jesus came precisely to unshackle him, his cross being the key.

But even before the foundation of Israel, God already showed his mercy in the renewal of the world through the Great Flood. There was a general perversion in Noah’s time, and to cleanse the world, God sent the flood. Then after the flood, he promised not to inundate the world again. God gave the rainbow as the sign of that promise. When God would see the rainbow, he would remember that promise, and he would act mercifully again.

4. The fulfillment of the promise in Jesus Christ

Jesus came announcing that the Kingdom of God is at hand, that the day of salvation is near. This strong message he substantiated with his teachings, healings and many other wondrous deeds. His redemptive actions reached their climax with his passion, death and resurrection.

During the last supper, Jesus commanded his disciples: “Do this in remembrance of me.” “Remember” is a powerful word. When the Lord bade his disciples to “do again the last supper” in remembrance of him, it was not only to celebrate his memory, it was not only to imitate what he did, it was not only to gather in fellowship and participate in that commemoration. It was to remember God’s bountiful mercy so truly present, so evident in Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. It was to make that sacrifice present again in the here and now.

The rainbow was the sign of the covenant of God with Noah. But now Jesus Christ himself is the sign of the new covenant of God with man. God recalled his promise not to destroy the world again with flood when he saw the rainbow. But when God sees the Body and Blood of Jesus, his Son, raised in offering in the celebration of the holy mass, he will remember his promise of mercy. God will see the sign, he will remember and he will act again with mercy.

5. The holy mass as memorial of God’s mercy

The holy mass or the Eucharist is a re-enactment, in a bloodless manner, of the sacrifice of the cross. In the last supper, Jesus had every one of us in mind to save. Through the sacrifice of his life on the cross, he saved every person – past, present and future. His sacrifice was once-for-all; that’s why, it need not be repeated anymore. By that singular sacrifice, he gained the merits for the salvation of all. Now, every time the holy mass is celebrated, the sacrifice of the cross is made present once more, and the graces won by Jesus Christ are made available again for the people in the present. And in every celebration of the mass, God remembers his promise of mercy to humanity, and we ourselves remember how merciful God is to us sinners.

God’s richness in mercy and the coming of Jesus as man are two things inextricably joined. It was because of God’s overflowing mercy that he sent his only Son to be the ransom for our sins, that we may be released from the bondage of eternal death into the glory of eternal life. It was precisely the coming of Christ that finally fulfilled God’s promise of mercy.

6. Mary’s participation

Could all this have happened without Mary’s consent and cooperation in God’s merciful plan? We don’t have to think about it. But we thank Mary for saying her unconditional “yes” to God.

Mary knew the history of her people. She knew their desperations and hopes. She knew God’s promise of salvation. She may not have thought even once that she would be playing the vital role of carrying the Redeemer in her womb and bringing him up, until the day Angel Gabriel appeared to her. But when the fullness of time arrived for God to work out his plan of mercy, Mary, herself mindful of God’s mercy, said, “Be it done unto me as you have said.” And she became, as it were, the receptacle of God’s mercy.

7. Our response

Every time we celebrate this memorial of Christ’s death and resurrection, may we remember God, our God, who is rich in mercy for us. Through Mary’s “yes”, God has truly come to help us, for he has remembered his promise of mercy.