God’s mercy is his justice and God's justice is his mercy. Consider this story.
 
For Dorothy Day, an American Catholic convert, life started out on a very rocky road. She grew up in the social ferment of women’s emancipation, the First World War, the labor movement and the American fight over socialism, labor unions, anarchism and communism. She was no fan of capitalism and fascism. She wanted to be a social activist and a famous writer. She wrote for socialist and anarchist newspapers, battled with communists in the streets of New York, was friends with Eugene O’Neil and other writers. She spent time in jail for her support of the women’s suffrage movement. Dorothy lived the sexual revolution in the 1920s. She became pregnant by the man she loved, but who didn’t love her. He loved the philosophy of Nietzsche. She became pregnant and had an abortion to try and save her relationship. He abandoned her anyway.
 
The Eleventh Virgin, Conversion and Shame
She wrote about her experience of love and her abortion in her semi-autobiographical novel, The Eleventh Virgin,  two years later. It detailed the Bohemian lifestyle of the 1920s and her feelings about growing up, free love and abortion. She moved in with another man, Forster Batterham, an anarchist, and became pregnant again. This time she refused an abortion and so he left her. Once again she was abandoned but had her child Tamar. She then met real life communists, the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul of New York. She had been interested in religion from her childhood, but her encounter with these sisters who befriended her was one of the various influences which led her to conversion to the Catholic faith. She became one of the most influential Catholic proponents of the social gospel and the works of mercy in the 20^th Century.
 
As her child grew older and Dorothy’s faith grew, she was very embarrassed by her choices as a young, single woman in the 1920s. She told the story in her book, The Long Loneliness, of an experience she had in confession. She told the confessor that she felt a deep shame and regret over her abortion and the life that she had led. She said that her book, The Eleventh Virgin, was a “very bad book.” In order to atone for her sins, wherever she went in the country, she shopped used book stores, bought all the copies she could find of her ‘bad book’ and then burned them. She thought that if she burned every copy she would make restitution for her past sins. In the confessional, the priest said to her, “Dorothy, do you believe in God’s mercy and forgiveness, or only destroying the evidence that you ever did anything wrong.” We cannot undo the past; we can only live in God's mercy going forward.
 
Mercy is undeserved
What is eternal life? What does it mean to be brought back from the dead? When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, it was the paramount sign that he is the Lord of Life. The Lord told Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life; everyone who believes in me, even if he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” Saving us from compete destruction is the fundamental act of mercy that only God can accomplish. The doorway into eternal life is mercy and the works of mercy. Mercy is being brought back from the dead. Eternal life is living in God's mercy while remembering all the reasons his mercy causes us pain.

All of Jesus’ miracles were signs of God’s justice and his mercy. God’s mercy saves us from destruction. People that regret sinful decisions of the past feel a sense of shame when they look into the eyes of the children that they love and who love them. We can feel unworthy of the good things that God has given us. God’s mercy can cause a sense of shame. But that is mercy because mercy is always undeserved and because it is undeserved, mercy undermines our sense of self-sufficiency. But if we accept God’s mercy, we enter into a right relationship with God and we begin to change into the person God made us to be. That is God’s justice.
 
The Works of Mercy and Eternal Life
The works of mercy are the road map to a different manner of existence. We are called to show mercy to people who don’t deserve it because mercy is not earned. Sharing with the hungry, thirsty, the naked and visiting the imprisoned is to live faithfully with one another. To comfort the afflicted, spend time teaching the ignorant and bearing the wrongs of others is to emulate our savior’s mercy. The works of mercy are works of justice in that they recognize the right of all of God’s children to the good things of life.
 
Dorothy Day lived the corporal and spiritual works of mercy in a radical way. She and Peter Maurin started the Catholic Workers Movement, she became famous and was sought out by all sorts or people who were attracted by her books, articles and personal example. She was a Catholic celebrity. Dr. Robert Coles began his biography of Dorothy Day by recalling the first time he met her. He went to the Catholic Worker House, walked in and Day was sitting at the opposite end of the room with a distraught woman. She signaled Cole to a chair near the door, and then returned to her conversation. The woman was severely intoxicated, hysterical and Day was trying to calm her down. This went on for several minutes until finally the woman was at some peace. Dorothy took her leave of the woman and approached Cole. She asked, “Were you waiting to speak with one of us?” Mercy changes how we see other people.
 
Mercy and sharing Christ’s Suffering
Dorothy Day felt shame over the child she lost when she looked at Tamar, the child she had. Tamar, as an adult, left the Catholic church to the disappointment of her mother. How could Tamar not love what her mother loved? Entering into God’s mercy does not mean that our story ends the way we hope and pray that it does. Nobody’s story is simple. The works of mercy must be lived both in and outside of our family. To care for other’s physical needs, to visit them when they are separated from us by sickness, imprisoned or dying. To counsel them, encourage them, to help them in their doubts and afflictions, to forgive and patiently bear the wrongs others inflict on us. To, always, pray for the living and the dead is merciful and, in God’s eyes, a life of justice. None of us should be alone in life. Other people, our children, parents, friends and those we meet on the street, must work out the puzzle of their own life.
 
Parish Penance Service and the Works of Mercy
On Thursday of this week, our parish is hosting its Lenten Penance Service. In our bulletin, on our website, on our parish Facebook page and in the parish newsletter, there is a link both to our Holy Week schedule and to an Examination of Conscience based on the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. Think about experiencing God’s mercy as we all examine our conscience to consider how well, if at all, we have shared God’s life of mercy.

Click here to download the Examination of Conscience based on the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy