a call to arms

                      Father Anthony Mellace’s  Divine Mercy Sunday Homily

(7 and 9 o’clock packed Masses of the Immaculate Conception Parish)

My dear friends,

Eight days after Easter we celebrate the very beautiful feast of Mercy Sunday. Jesus, the Incarnate Expression of the mercy of the Father comes to spread his mercy to the entire world. What is the meaning of mercy? Mercy in Latin is “misericordis” and is composed of two words signifying “misery” and “heart”. There is no need for me to explain to you what misery is, we have all experienced it at one point or another in our lives. We know full well what misery is. Heart is synonymous to sensitiveness, compassion, concern, etc. for the miseries that others are full of or suffer from. He who is merciful or practices mercy is compassionate and sensitive to the miseries of his fellowmen and women.

Is mercy opposed to or in conflict with justice? Was God unjust in showing mercy to the prodigal son or the workers of the last hour? No, actually mercy is the most noble and sublime part of justice and one of its harmonious aspects. Mercy takes into account many more factors and see deeper into the qualities of a person or situation than does simple justice. A mother does not give less food and drink or less love and affection to her child for being bad, but is generous and loving to all of them. God is the same way with all of us and lets the rain pour on the good and bad alike.

Jesus had compassion on all of our miseries. He came to free us from all of them. He eradicated physical miseries by curing countless sick people. He came to free everyone of emotional suffering and misery. He brought back smiles to the sad, courage to the dismayed, peace to the fearful, new meaning and hope to the depressed, etc. He freed us of our moral miseries with the forgiveness of sins. Jesus is the incarnate mercy of the Father who extends his helping hand to all. Jesus, the king of mercy, is present amongst us and will continue until the end of times to pour out his wonderful mercy on all of us.

One of the most beautiful scenes of the Gospel is the dinner that Jesus had together with Lazarus, Martha and Mary Magdalene. Can you imagine the inexpressible joy that Martha had at that moment? She had with her around that table the persons she most loved and cherished in this world. She had lost them at a certain point in her life and suffered a deep anguish in her heart. Lazarus, her beloved brother had died from a sickness and Mary Magdalene had left home to lead a promiscuous sexual life in whorehouses. Martha, however, did not lose her faith but fought perseveringly in prayer and sought Jesus during her profound emotional pangs interceding to him for her brother and sister.

Jesus answered her prayer and restored Lazarus to a new physical life and Mary Magdalene to a new moral and spiritual life. Now the four of them enjoyed a fine dinner together celebrating this wonderful feast of mercy shown to the newly united family. This is Jesus mission of mercy, to restore and unite all in his love and goodness. What joy Martha felt to have her brother restored to life sitting at her side and conversing with her. What joy Martha felt to see her sister converted from sin, fully restored as a human being and sharing a new and deep life with her. Finally, we have the Son of God together with them and pouring out jewels of wisdom from his heart to share with the whole family during this meal. This was truly heaven on earth.

The greatest expression of mercy is forgiveness. Jesus was spit upon, insulted, flagellated, crowned with thorns, rejected, abandoned, betrayed, condemned to death, crucified, etc. How did he respond to all of this? From the height of Calvary he simply forgave his persecutors and said “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” This was Jesus’ greatest act of mercy towards all of us. We do not even suffer an ounce of what Jesus suffered and even are still incapable of forgiving others. I know that forgiveness is not easy, but if we are to imitate the mercy of Jesus and practice it amongst ourselves as true Christians, then we must have the courage to forgive each other.  The way we practice mercy towards others will be the way it will be meted out to us on judgment day (with what judgment you judged, you shall be judged, with what measure you measured, it will be measured unto you).

The opposite of mercy is vengeance or a spirit of revenge and exaggerated sense of quick and rapid justice. We see this everyday in the news. Thieves not only steal, but they also murder their victims for no reason at all. Boyfriends kill their girlfriends for jealousy or possessiveness. Parents whip and beat their children mercilessly. Managers lie to, cheat and fraud their workers, people swear and beat each other in the middle of a traffic jam. Many do not even argue, but pull out a gun and shoot the person dead on the spot.  I could go on and on and on citing so many examples of this spirit of vengeance and deep revenge and hate in people’s heart.

Brazil needs mercy and needs it very badly. We have to learn to be tolerant, patient, forgiving, understanding, kind and good. This is the way to true peace of heart and social harmony. Violence is no solution and leads to nowhere except death and destruction. If God were to act solely on pure and rigid justice, none of us would survive. He truly loves us and practices mercy towards us to give us every possible chance for salvation and moral recuperation. He is extremely indulgent and would like us to be likewise one towards the other.

I was deeply saddened when I found out about the final decision of the Supreme Court of Brazil in regards to unborn babies with cerebral defects. They were condemned to death in an 8 to 2 vote. Up to that moment, Brazil was one of the very few nations admired by the Pope and humanity for being one of the last bastions where human life was still respected and legally defended in the world. Now this is no longer true. The cowardly and shameful decision of the eight judicial assassins destroyed that beautiful image before the world. The whole procedure was a flagrant scam because it was realized during the Holy Week when people’s minds were distracted by the religious ceremonies. True medics, researchers, experts on the brain and diseases, geneticists, representatives of various Faiths, scientists, etc. were not consulted nor invited to present their material as valid arguments in regard to the issue. They were not taken into consideration, but ignored.

The cerebral damage that they cited to legalize abortion is something that is easily cured and resolved by medical science, but they blocked and ignored this evidence.  There are over 120 university degree professionals in the world who live a normal life and practice their profession but possess no brains. Their skulls are completely empty or have a very thin lining near the spinal column. Why did the Supreme Court not cite this interesting fact? If they are concerned about the mother’s health, why not let her bring to term the baby and then kill him outside the womb, seeing that they will murder him anyways? What difference is there to take his life in or out of the womb seeing that he is condemned either way? At least, they won’t have to damage and perforate the womb of the mother!

My friends, we need to react to react to this horrendous and monstrous decision of these judicial assassins.  The true reason as to why they want abortion is to get rid of the babies of the women that they themselves made pregnant. They have money, power, influence, etc and they don’t need God or us in their lives. I would suggest that everyone in this congregation write to his or her congressmen to quickly introduce a bill that will protect the lives of deformed babies and annul the Supreme Court decision. The minister of health said that he is quickly going to allocate money to open abortion clinics and train doctors to perform abortions because “the demand for abortion is now going to be great” (his words). Funny, he did not say that the demand for abortion of babies with brain defects is going to be great, but simply “abortion”. The whole judicial decision was a plot and scheme of the socialists to sneak abortion in through the back door.

Before I end, I would like to know if there is anyone in the congregation that has children with physical and mental defects (Down syndrome, brain defects, mongoloids, etc).

(several people get up and bring their children to the altar where Father Anthony is giving his homily. Father Anthony greets each one and asks them several questions)

What is your name?

(Ricardo, Jose, Paula, Ana, Silmara, Wagner, Betina)

If the Supreme Court had ruled the murder of defective children when at the time that your wives were pregnant with these children and you had the legal chance to abort them, would you have aborted your child in that period?

(all answer emphatically “no”)

Do you all love and deeply cherish your children?

(all answer emphatically “yes”. Father Anthony looks at each one in the eyes and shakes their hands)

To me, you are the true heroes of this country and authentic Brazilians. Congratulations on your fine courage to assume human life!

(everyone in the Church get up and enthusiastically applaud the families with the  defective children)

You see, my friends, the Court lied to the country. It said that families were in anguish to abort their children, but they did not consult one family on the issue. It was all corruption, lies and international money that now brought this wicked curse on Brazil. I pray to God that he have mercy on this nation and that the chastisement be avoided by active Christians who will do everything possible to remove the plague of abortion from this nation.

Father Anthony Mellace