A Collage of Mercy and Compassion

Homily for Friday of the Seventh Week in Ordinary TIme

Today’s responsorial psalm, Psalm 103, is a rather long song of praise of God for the gift of mercy and compassion. Interestingly, many of the verses in this psalm are taken from as many as seven other psalms. You might even say that it is something of a collage as it patches the verses together in singing God’s praises.

Interestingly enough, much of the Letter of St. James, from which we have been reading for the past two weeks, is, like Psalm 103, made up of quotations from various books of the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament. Unlike the letters of St. Paul which focuses our attention on our salvation through the redemptive suffering of Jesus, the Letter of St. James exhorts us to obey the various statutes and commands that have been handed down through the ages. The ethical norms of which St. James writes are derived not primarily from Christology, as in Paul, but from a concept of salvation that involves conversion, baptism, forgiveness of sin, and the expectation of judgment.

In today’s passage, after five chapters of exhortations, St. James comes back to the cornerstone of Old Testament theology; namely, the fact that the Lord is kind and merciful. The language is reminiscent of the so-called “little creed” we read in the Book of Exodus, quoting God’s self-revelation as a God of mercy and kindness.

Consequently, even though the Letter of St. James constantly reminds us that we will all stand before God for judgment, at the last, he reminds us that the judgment of God is another revelation of God’s forgiveness and compassion. As we come ever closer to Lent, this reminder is a powerful motivation to approach the coming penitential season with a renewed faith in God’s love.