Have you been Mercified?

Posted On June 4, 2013

Mercified. The word just popped into my head again. Yeah, I know, it’s not really a word — at least I’ve never seen it in a dictionary or heard it used on the street. But it’s a word to me, a word that has intrigued and fed me since the day I first heard it.

It was several years ago, at a week-long retreat we were presenting at the National Shrine of Divine Mercy. After one of the talks, my son Tim came up to me and asked, “Dad, is mercified a word? I’ve never heard it, and I don’t really know what it means, but I like it.”

I don’t really know what it means either, but I like it, too, and I’ve enjoyed musing about it over the years.

In the past, I’ve played with the idea of it as an adjective describing us if we allow ourselves to take up our crosses with Jesus.

Today my focus was on Jesus as He hung on the cross. When He was crucified — He who is Mercy itself — His whole being flowed from His pierced heart as a fountain of mercy for us. On the cross, He was the wounded lover; He was Mercy crucified for us.

As our hearts are pierced by His love, by His gaze from the cross, we are drawn to take up our own crosses, our own sufferings, and join them to His eternal offering to the Father for souls. We become “mercified” — consecrated to mercy, transformed into mercy. Our lives are now consecrated, set apart as, with Him, we become wounded lovers, wounded healers, sharing His love, His pain, and His thirst for souls.

Christ doesn’t give us His mercy so that we can keep it for ourselves. He expects us to pass it on. Mercified from the cross, we are filled to overflowing, empowered to respond fully to His “new command” to love one another just as He has loved us. He gives us His mercy so that we can become mercy for others.