God is an Almighty, Everlasting Mercy

an Ash Wednesday reflection

Icon of Divine Mercy

Today is Ash Wednesday. This is the collect:

Almighty and everlasting God, you hate nothing you have made and forgive the sins of all who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Maggie Ross offers an alternative. On my reading, it does not contradict but crowns the prayer above, setting it in a new light, allowing us to see the collect’s true shape, its deeper loveliness:

Merciful God, you hate nothing you have made, and enfold in your love all who turn to you: Create and make in us new and truthful hearts, that our guilt and wretchedness may open us to your forgiveness which brings us new life; through Jesus Christ our Lord who suffered shame and death to show us the extent of your love. Amen.

To say God is almighty is not to say God has the power to bend anything and everything to his will. It is to say God can give himself and his life to us without reserve—and without at all undoing our being, without breaking our will.

To say God is merciful is not to say God pities us and so restrains himself. It is to say his sorrow for what we’ve suffered breaks everything that would hold us back from the unbounded joy and unbreakable peace he means for us to share.

To say God is everlasting is not to say God’s life is long. It is to say his life is full—and fulfilling.

Taken together, these affirmations remind us that God’s life is and is not his own, that his goodness is endless, infinite, always-abounding, inexorable. Fuller than full. Full to overflowing. Always more, always better. Inexpressibly, irrepressibly glorious and good and glad. God, we might say, is so fully alive we can’t help but be caught up in the liveliness, sooner or later. Christ is all—and will be in all.

Make no mistake: God is truly almighty: for him, all things are indeed possible. But he is almighty precisely in and by his compassion, his clemency. His mercy triumphs over all—including all we’ve imagined as justice.

God is an almighty, everlasting mercy. As Francis has said, his name is Mercy. He loves all things as he loves himself. He does not hate anything he has made. His love reaches wider, deeper, higher, broader than existence itself. There is no mercy we shall ever need that is not already ours, because he is ours and we are his. To know this truth is to find the contrition that makes all things new.

All.

Again and again and again the Scriptures place this little word in our mouths. We choke on it. It breaks our teeth. Until it purges our lips, as it did Isaiah’s. Then it is sweeter than honey, not only in our mouth but also in our heart.

Listen to the boasts of today’s Psalm, Psalm103. As you take them in, confessing them to yourself, try to take them to heart. Ask yourself: What if I let these words mean what they mean? What if I don’t rush to explain them away?

1 Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me, bless his holy Name.

2 Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and forget not all his benefits.

3 He forgives all your sins
and heals all your infirmities;

4 He redeems your life from the grave
and crowns you with mercy and loving-kindness;

5 He satisfies you with good things,
and your youth is renewed like an eagle's.

6 The Lord executes righteousness
and judgment for all who are oppressed.

7 He made his ways known to Moses
and his works to the children of Israel.

8 The Lord is full of compassion and mercy,
slow to anger and of great kindness.

9 He will not always accuse us,
nor will he keep his anger for ever.

10 He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
nor rewarded us according to our wickedness.

11 For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so is his mercy great upon those who fear him.

12 As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our sins from us.

13 As a father cares for his children,
so does the Lord care for those who fear him.

14 For he himself knows whereof we are made;
he remembers that we are but dust.

Remember that you are dust. But remember it as God remembers it, and in no other way.

Remember this too: not only whereof you are made, but who made you—and how (in and through the living of his own mortal life). Then you will know you have nothing to fear.