THE WAY OF MERCY

The Christian Faith as Love, Gift, Truth, Liberation, and Obedience to the Will of God

The foundation of all good: the perfection of God and the nature of love

What does it mean to do good? This question concerns the heart of Christian life, because faith is not exhausted by the outward observance of rules or by the pursuit of an individual perfection measured by the privations endured. Christianity grounds moral life in love. God is the Good, God is love (1 Jn 4:8), and love, in its truest expression, is the free communication of good: gift.

Divine perfection explains why giving is the fundamental characteristic of God’s action. He lacks nothing, has no need to acquire a quality he does not possess, and does not need to improve his own condition. Human beings eat because they are hungry, seek knowledge because they do not know, and ask for help because they are in need. God, being the perfect Good, has no need to do good to himself. He does not need to direct his action towards himself to make up for a deficiency. Whenever he acts, he acts always and only for the benefit of creatures, never to perfect himself.

This disposition stands in contrast to self-centred action, which places the advantage of the person acting at its centre. The decisive question is not only what is done, but for whose benefit it is done.

Divine action is directed entirely towards the good of creatures. No offering can increase God’s wealth, no sacrifice can satisfy a need of his, and no creature can add anything to his perfection. God gives so that creatures may receive good. Creation is the first great example of this gratuitous giving: what does not exist receives existence, not because God needs to complete himself, but so that another may share in good. Grace and redemption reveal the same direction of love: God helps those in need, not because he himself needs to help.

The Greek word agápe designates love itself, understood as a freely given gift directed towards the good of others. It is distinct from éros, understood as the desire to receive or acquire a good that one lacks. The point is not to deny all value to human desire, but to distinguish two directions: that of someone seeking a good for themselves, and that of someone communicating a good to others. God, who possesses the fullness of good, does not desire in order to remedy a lack of his own; human beings, by contrast, are both recipients of the gift and potential givers. Precisely because they receive, they can give to others.

The same disposition must become the model for human action. Human beings have legitimate needs and are not called to pretend that they have none; but when they seek to imitate God, they must free themselves from egocentrism and learn to make the good of others the ultimate aim of their actions. What an action consists in does not, by itself, determine whether it is charitable; its purpose does. Wealth can be accumulated to exalt oneself or used to help those who lack necessities; knowledge can serve vanity or the instruction of the ignorant; strength can become domination or the protection of the weak. In every case, the decisive question is: for whose good am I acting?

The passage from egocentrism to an orientation towards the good of others does not make human beings self-sufficient. They continue to experience hunger, thirst, fear, weariness and the need for help. Their calling is not to erase their own littleness, but to accept it fully and trust in God’s providence. In this way they can cease to make their own needs the supreme purpose of existence, while still attending to them responsibly. The good they receive must not stop with them: it must pass on to others. This circulation of the gift constitutes the fundamental structure of charity.

The one triune God: justice revealed and mercy manifested in Christ

The Old and New Testaments reveal the same God, one in nature and three in persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Son who becomes incarnate in Jesus Christ is not a different God from the one who revealed himself to Israel, but is eternally, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the one God. Justice and mercy therefore do not belong to two opposing divine wills. They are manifestations of the same perfect Good, which does not change and has no need to acquire any perfection.

In the Old Testament, God reveals himself pre-eminently through justice. He gives human beings the law, distinguishes good from evil, manifests the justice and goodness of his will, and teaches that sin is not simply an individual choice without consequences, but a transgression of the order of good. The Decalogue teaches human beings not to take their own desires as the absolute measure of action: the life, possessions and relationships of their neighbour, and the truth concerning them, must be respected, because human beings are not the masters of good and evil. Observance of the law thus constitutes the first necessary acknowledgement of God’s will.

Yet justice, while indicating what human beings must do and what they must avoid, does not eliminate the fact that they are weak and sinful. The law makes guilt recognisable; by itself, it is not enough to turn a sin already committed into a good, or to free human beings through the strength of their will alone. It is precisely here that the meaning of mercy becomes clear: mercy turns towards those who need to be freed from evil. It does not erase the distinction between good and evil, because without that distinction there would be nothing to forgive; instead, it freely communicates to the sinner the good of liberation and reconciliation.

In the New Testament, this mercy is manifested supremely in the incarnation and Passion of Jesus Christ. The God who revealed his justice is the same God who comes to meet sinful humanity in order to save it. The cross is not a work through which God obtains something for himself: God is already the perfect Good, he has no lack to remedy, and whenever he acts, he acts always and only for the benefit of creatures, never to perfect himself. Christ, who is innocent, suffers not to free himself from a sin of his own, but to free human beings from their sins. His Passion therefore manifests love as a gift directed entirely towards the good of others.

Mercy does not abolish justice, but fulfils its purpose within the order of love. The commandment not to do evil to one’s neighbour remains necessary; yet the Christian is also called actively to procure good for that neighbour. And when the neighbour has done evil, abstention from revenge is precisely forgiveness: renouncing the repayment of the evil received. The law teaches us not to wrong others; Christ also teaches us to help those who have fallen, to forgive those who have wronged us, and to give even when giving entails giving something up.

This is why the way of Jesus is the way of mercy. Human beings do not attain Christian perfection by claiming to be self-sufficient or never to need forgiveness. They must fully accept their own littleness, acknowledge sin, repent and receive God’s mercy; precisely because they receive it, they are called to communicate it to others. Receiving and giving mercy are not two separate ways, but the two movements of a single life directed towards love.

The permission of evil and the meaning of punishment

God’s perfection also enables us to understand the meaning of punishment. God is the Good and cannot be diminished by the actions of creatures. Sin is always a transgression of his will, even when the act is concretely directed against a human being, against that person’s possessions, or against another part of creation. In this sense, the psalmist addresses God, saying: “Against you, against you alone have I sinned” (Ps 51:6). Every sin, whatever creature is directly harmed, is ultimately directed against God, because it contradicts the good he wills.

Yet sin cannot take anything away from God. A human being can suffer a loss, a wound or an offence that genuinely alters their condition; God, by contrast, loses no good and does not become less perfect. It is the sinner who harms themselves by turning away from good, as well as possibly harming other creatures. Consequently, divine punishment cannot aim to repair a deficiency that has arisen in God or to satisfy a need of his for retaliation. If God needs nothing for himself, the meaning of punishment must likewise be sought in the good of the creature.

Punishment can therefore be understood as a medicine: the evil suffered by the sinner is directed towards healing the evil they have committed. Suffering, taken in itself, is not a good. It remains an evil endured. The good consists in the liberation from sin towards which that suffering can be directed. In this way, divine justice is not reduced to restoring an advantage to God, who has no need of it, but concerns the restoration of good in the human person.

It remains to be understood how God, being the perfect Good, can permit evil without himself being its author. We must distinguish between doing evil and permitting a creature to do it. God does not will evil as evil; he can, however, allow it to be done by an evil will and, without making that will good, direct the evil permitted towards an end of justice and healing. From this perspective, Satan, who does evil, can be considered the actual executor of punitive suffering that God permits and limits according to his providence.

An analogy may make the distinction clearer: the ruler who judges according to justice and the executioner who actually carries out the punishment do not perform the same function. Likewise, the evil of punishment is brought about by the evil creature, while God, without becoming evil or ceasing to be the Good, can permit it and direct it towards the sinner’s healing. The analogy serves to distinguish the action of the one who produces evil from the good purpose towards which God directs it; it attributes to Satan neither a justice of his own nor a power independent of divine permission.

This explanation concerns suffering that follows from personal guilt. It does not warrant treating all suffering as punishment, because a person can suffer without having committed the sin that would be the cause of that suffering. It is precisely this second possibility that leads to the Christian meaning of the cross.

The two forms of human suffering: punishment and the cross

Considered in relation to the personal guilt of the one who suffers, human suffering falls into two fundamental forms: punishment and the cross. Either the suffering follows from an evil committed by the one who endures it, or it does not derive from that person’s guilt and is, in this sense, unmerited. The difference lies not in the intensity of the pain or its outward manifestation, but in the relationship between suffering and the sin of the one who suffers.

In the first form, punishment, the individual suffers as a consequence of their own sin. As we have seen, the end towards which God can direct this suffering is the healing of the sinner. The good sought therefore concerns, first of all, the one who suffers: through a fault, that person has introduced evil into their own life and needs to be freed from it. Punishment takes on a medicinal meaning, not because pain is desirable in itself, but because it can be directed towards restoring good in the one who has sinned.

The second form is the cross: suffering that does not derive from the personal guilt of the one who endures it. Its purpose is not to heal the sufferer of a sin that would have caused that suffering. Precisely because it is not due to that person’s guilt, it can be offered for the good of others. This distinction becomes fully intelligible in the Passion of Jesus Christ, which constitutes the supreme model of every cross.

Christ is innocent and without sin, yet he endures suffering and death. He does not suffer to correct an evil of his own, since he has committed no sin. Rather, he freely takes upon himself the Passion for the salvation of sinful humanity. The recipients of the good he procures through his suffering are human beings, not Christ himself. This is what it means for the cross to be directed entirely towards the good of others: an innocent person accepts suffering in order to free others from evil.

This possibility does not concern Christ alone. Through baptism, the Christian is incorporated into him and becomes a member of his body. Saint Paul declares: “You are the body of Christ, and each of you has your own part as a member of it” (1 Cor 12:27). Belonging to the body of Christ means that the Christian does not merely observe his Passion from outside, but can participate in it. The life of the member is united to that of the body and, through this union, the member’s suffering too can be offered in union with that of the Lord.

Thus, when a Christian endures suffering not caused by their own guilt, they can unite it to Christ’s cross and offer it for the liberation of others. This does not mean producing, through one’s own strength, a redemption separate from that of Jesus. It is a participation in the one work of mercy accomplished by Christ. Saint Paul expresses this participation when he speaks of the sufferings he endures in his own flesh for the sake of Christ’s body, which is the Church (Col 1:24). The Christian’s suffering, united to the Lord’s Passion, can thus become an expression of charity towards one’s neighbour.

It is important to understand the direction of the gift. In punishment, the one who suffers is also the recipient of the healing towards which the suffering is directed. In the cross, by contrast, the one who suffers offers their suffering so that others may receive a good. The first form concerns the sinner’s liberation from the evil they have committed; the second concerns the Christian’s participation in the liberation of others. The cross thus makes it possible for even an undeserved evil to be taken up in the exercise of mercy.

This does not mean that Christians should deliberately seek pain or devise privations to increase their own spiritual greatness. Suffering does not become holy simply because it is suffering. The cross is the suffering that a person encounters without having desired it as an end, and that, in obedience to God’s will, they accept and offer with love. Its value does not derive from the amount of pain endured, but from union with Christ and from the good of others towards which that pain is directed.

The distinction between punishment and the cross therefore illuminates the whole Christian understanding of suffering. God, who has no need to procure a good for himself, can direct the evil endured towards the good of creatures. In punishment, suffering is directed towards the healing of the one who has sinned; in the cross, the suffering of the innocent, united to that of Christ, becomes an offering for the salvation of others. It is above all in this second form that suffering manifests the distinctive structure of charity: giving up the practice of making oneself the ultimate beneficiary of one’s actions and directing the gift towards the good of one’s neighbour.

The commandments as safeguards of the good of others

If charity consists in communicating good, the commandments that prohibit evil safeguard its elementary conditions. Not killing means not destroying the person to whom a good might be given; not stealing means not taking from one’s neighbour what they already possess. Theft is, in this respect, the movement opposed to giving: the giver adds a good to the other’s condition, while the thief deprives them of a good. The prohibition is not a rule alien to love, but its minimum prerequisite.

The same structure can illuminate the commandment concerning adultery. In marriage, two people freely undertake reciprocal obligations and promise a communion of life that includes fidelity and the exclusivity of conjugal intimacy. Adultery violates the relational good promised to the other spouse. This does not mean that one person’s body is another person’s property; it means that a freely undertaken promise generates duties towards one’s neighbour, and that breaking it can deprive that neighbour of a good they had been assured. The connection with theft is therefore analogical: in both cases, something that ought to have been respected is taken away or violated.

The commandments that prohibit unjustly desiring what belongs to one’s neighbour carry this analysis into the will itself. Evil does not begin only when something has been taken away: it can already be present in the intention to gain an advantage through another’s deprivation. The law of love therefore concerns both outward action and inward disposition. Even before giving, human beings must learn not to make harm to others a means of pursuing their own interest.

These precepts do not exhaust agape. Abstaining from theft is not yet the same as helping the poor; not killing is not yet the same as actively safeguarding the lives of others; not lying is not yet the same as teaching the truth. Yet without this preliminary safeguarding, the gift would be contradicted by the very action of the one who claims to love.

Truth as a good to safeguard and communicate

The commandment not to bear false witness, although its immediate formulation refers to a lie told against one’s neighbour, has a broader moral scope. It calls Christians not only to avoid false accusations and deceit, but to cultivate truth throughout their lives and reject falsehood. In the Gospel of John, Christ presents himself as the truth and declares that the truth sets people free; in the same Gospel, the devil is called a liar and the father of lies. The opposition between truth and falsehood thus takes on an essential meaning in Christian life: truth belongs to the order of good and freedom, while falsehood leads human beings into deception and can deprive them of the possibility of knowing and acting rightly.

The search for truth is also a fundamental condition of spiritual mercy. Those who wish to instruct the ignorant must know what they teach; those who wish to counsel the doubtful must seek to understand reality correctly; those who wish to admonish sinners must be able to distinguish good from evil. Truth is therefore a good that can be given and, at the same time, a necessary means of giving other spiritual goods rightly. For this reason, Christians must not limit themselves to refraining from lies, but must love what is true, seek it diligently, acknowledge their own errors, and communicate to others the knowledge that can free them from ignorance. Truth must not become a source of intellectual pride, but a good placed at the service of charity.

The fourth commandment: tradition, gratitude and responsibility towards future generations

The fourth commandment, “Honour your father and your mother”, cannot be reduced to a demand for submission. Parents precede their children: they have made their existence possible, cared for them when they were unable to provide for themselves, and passed on material goods, knowledge, language and ways of life. This precedence does not automatically confer greater wisdom or infallibility, but it makes an original relationship visible: before being able to give, each person has received. Respect for parents arises from acknowledging this good.

The precedence of parents points, in a limited and analogous way, to God’s absolute priority over creation. God does not precede creatures as an elderly person precedes a young person in time: he is eternal, the origin of all that exists. Yet the dependence of creatures on the Creator helps us understand why human life cannot be conceived as a work wholly produced by the person who lives it. Each person is born into a world they have not built.

To understand the value of this inheritance, we can use the comparison with roads. The landscape has a relatively stable form: mountains, plains, rivers and valleys define the possible routes. Barring natural changes or transformations brought about by human beings, a path that leads from point A to point B continues to lead there even many centuries later. If our ancestors discovered the shortest and most suitable route, their descendants should not abandon it simply because it is old. The possibility of finding a better way does not diminish the value of the one already known; rather, it invites us to improve it when there are sufficient reasons to do so.

The same analogy applies to laws, knowledge and customs. Previous generations have faced problems, tried out solutions, recognised truths and built institutions. Their achievements are paths traced through human experience. Not every path is the best, and not every custom is just: an unjust tradition does not become good merely because it is ancient. But what is truly good deserves to be preserved until a better way of attaining the same good is recognised. Authentic progress does not consist in rejecting the past because it is past, but in distinguishing what must be preserved from what can be corrected.

The transmission of good gives rise to a further duty: gratitude. If a road had not been built, the descendants would have had to build it; if a well had not been dug, they would have had to obtain water in some other way. The work of predecessors spares those who come after them an effort and offers them a benefit. Even when those who did the work were not thinking directly of their descendants, the good they produced can reach them across time. Tradition, in this sense, is a form of gift that outlasts the giver’s life.

In the Gospel of John, the Samaritan woman reminds Jesus of the well that Jacob had given to his people and from which he himself, his children and his livestock had drunk (Jn 4:12). Water was still being drawn from it many centuries later. The well thus becomes an image of a good received by someone who did not bring it into being. The same applies to a road, a language, true knowledge, a just law or a public work: each generation can live better thanks to the work of those that preceded it.

Parents are the immediate intermediaries in this transmission. They give their children life and, directly or indirectly, introduce them to a heritage of goods that they have not created alone. From this arises a debt of gratitude, which takes the form of honour, respect and obedience within the order proper to the filial relationship. Such gratitude does not require anyone to obey an unjust command or to regard their ancestors as perfect. A child may discover a truth unknown to their father; a generation may correct an ancient law. But even moving beyond an inherited path does not cancel the duty to thank those who traced it.

The fourth commandment therefore safeguards a continuity of giving. Fathers pass on to their children what they have received and what they have built; children receive it with gratitude, improve it when they can, and pass it on in turn. Respect for those who came before and responsibility towards those who will follow belong to a single movement of charity through the generations.

The Decalogue, the Mosaic Law and Christ’s new commandment

The Decalogue must be understood as an organic whole of expressions of the law of love. Its negative precepts protect our neighbour from the evil we might inflict upon them; its positive precepts direct the will towards the good owed to God and to others. The prohibition of murder safeguards life, the prohibition of theft safeguards possessions, the prohibition of adultery safeguards the exclusive communion promised by spouses, the prohibition of false witness calls us to faithfulness to truth, while the commandment to honour our parents safeguards the respect and obedience owed within the order of human relationships. All these precepts belong to the same law of love.

For this reason, it would be wrong to set the Ten Commandments against Christ’s new commandment, as though the former belonged to an outdated morality and the latter represented its negation. The commandment of love does not abolish the Decalogue, but reveals its unifying principle and its ultimate purpose. When Jesus tells the disciples to love one another as he has loved them, he does not authorise them to violate the preceding commandments. On the contrary, he reveals the foundation on which their observance rests. In this spiritual sense, the new commandment can be regarded as an eleventh commandment that sums up and brings to fulfilment the preceding ten.

We must, however, distinguish precisely between the Decalogue and the broader body of the Mosaic Law. Jewish tradition enumerates six hundred and thirteen precepts in the Torah. This count encompasses the entire body of prescriptions, including moral, ritual, worship-related and communal ones. Within this body of law, it is essential to distinguish the moral content of the Decalogue from the many prescriptions concerning purifications, washings, food, circumcision, sacrifices, ritual observances, and the religious and social organisation of ancient Israel. This distinction is fundamental to understanding Saint Paul’s teaching and the apostles’ decision regarding converts from paganism.

When Paul states that a person is not justified by works of the Law, we must not infer that he regards the prohibition of killing, the prohibition of stealing or the other moral principles of the Decalogue as superseded. In the Letter to the Romans, Paul explicitly recalls the commandments concerning adultery, murder, theft and coveting another’s possessions, affirming that they are summed up in the precept to love one’s neighbour as oneself. Love does no evil to one’s neighbour; for this reason, it constitutes the complete fulfilment of the Law. Paul does not set the commandment of love against the moral commandments. He traces them back to a single principle. Love is the reason why we must not do evil, and it is also the reason why we must actively do good.

A different question is whether the ritual and ceremonial prescriptions of the Mosaic order are binding on those who enter the Church from among the nations. The Council of Jerusalem, recounted in the fifteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, addresses precisely the question of whether pagans converted to Christ must be required to observe the Law of Moses. The apostles decide not to impose the entire Mosaic order upon them, setting out certain prescriptions concerning idolatrous contamination, blood, strangled animals and impurity. This decision does not amount to the abolition of the moral law. It means that belonging to Christ does not require adopting all the observances that had characterised the old covenant.

What is new in Christianity, therefore, does not consist in replacing the Ten Commandments with a morality free of prohibitions. It consists in recognising that the Decalogue already expresses the law of love and that this law finds its fullest manifestation in Christ, while the ritual prescriptions of the Mosaic Law do not constitute the foundation of Christian justification. This enables us to understand the meaning of Saint Paul’s teaching on faith and works. Faith is not a mere intellectual conviction, nor a verbal declaration of one’s religious affiliation. It is adherence to God, entrusting oneself to his grace, and acknowledging that good has its source in him.

When Paul denies that a person is justified by works of the Law, he does not teach that conduct towards one’s neighbour is irrelevant. On the contrary, in the Letter to the Galatians he speaks of faith working through charity. This also enables us to understand the teaching of the Letter of James, according to which faith without works is dead. There is no necessary contradiction between Paul and James. Paul denies that a person can base their justification on observance of the Law as an independent claim before God. James denies that a faith without works of charity can be considered alive. Faith does not replace love. It makes it possible. And authentically Christian works are not simply religious performances through which a person seeks to acquire merits, but concrete manifestations of the love received from God.

The golden rule and the new commandment: the measure of the gift

The law of love of neighbour is already present in the Old Testament: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Lev 19:18). Jesus also takes up the principle that we should do to others what we would wish to be done to ourselves (Mt 7:12). Humanity had known and independently arrived at this principle in many other cultures, without having received it through divine revelation: it has been called the golden rule. It is expressed positively in the invitation to do to others what one wishes to receive, and negatively in the prohibition against doing to them what one would not wish to suffer. In both cases, the point of reference remains the good that each person recognises and desires for themselves.

Jesus’ new commandment perfects and surpasses this measure: “Just as I have loved you, so you also must love one another” (Jn 13:34). It is no longer a person’s love for themselves that determines how much they should love their neighbour: Christ’s love becomes the measure. Jesus indicates its perfection when he affirms that no one has greater love than the one who lays down their life for their friends (Jn 15:13). To give one’s life means to give one’s whole self, without reserving for oneself what could be offered for the good of others.

The commandment does not merely ask us to calculate how much is required to meet a need and to stop when it seems satisfied. It asks us to begin with a constant disposition to give all that we are and all that we can give, even life itself. The other person’s need indicates the good towards which action should be directed; it does not, however, constitute the ultimate measure of our willingness to love. We must do everything possible to help, heal, liberate and bring about good. If this gift meets the need, the goal is attained; if it does not, the limitation of the result does not cancel the totality of the gift. A person cannot accomplish what exceeds their abilities, but can direct everything in their power entirely towards the good of others.

For this reason, the perfection of charity does not necessarily coincide with the actual elimination of every need. Not everything depends on the person acting, and human finitude sometimes prevents the desired result from being attained. The perfection of the will to love consists in not selfishly withholding what could be given. The criterion is not the quantity of good one manages materially to produce, but how freely and completely one places what one possesses and what one is at the other person’s disposal.

This disposition manifests holiness, understood precisely as gratuitous giving: giving without asking for, wanting or expecting anything in return. Every gift that is truly given freely participates in this holiness; the total gift of self constitutes its perfect manifestation. God is the infinite and perfect Good, and has no need to direct his action towards himself. He gives his whole self ceaselessly without being exhausted, because his infinity is not consumed by the gift. The incarnate Son, without losing his infinite divine nature, also assumes finite human nature. In human nature, the total gift of life can reach the point of death: on the cross, Christ manifests the same gratuitous giving of divine love, to the furthest extent permitted by the human condition. It is not the divine nature that dies or is exhausted; it is Christ who, in the human nature he has assumed, gives his life for others.

The cross is therefore the culminating manifestation of the new commandment. To love as Christ loved means not limiting oneself to avoiding evil, nor merely offering help proportionate to a need, but making the good of others the purpose of one’s entire existence, with a willingness to give that extends, when necessary, even to death.

From abstaining from evil to actively giving what is good

If good consists in giving, we must distinguish between doing evil, abstaining from evil and actively doing good. The Ten Commandments safeguard the fundamental conditions of love. They prevent a person from destroying or harming their neighbour, and order their relationships towards God and towards others. But observing the prohibitions, though necessary, does not exhaust every possibility of agape. A person may refrain from stealing and yet never give anything. They may refrain from killing and yet help no one. They may avoid lying and yet never communicate a useful truth to someone who does not know it. In these cases, they respect a prerequisite of love, but do not necessarily realise its full positive potential.

This distinction does not mean that the Decalogue is foreign to charity. It means that the law of love has a dimension of safeguarding and a dimension of sharing. The first prevents evil; the second gives what is good. Christ’s new commandment makes this second dimension supremely clear. A person is called not only to refrain from harming their neighbour, but actively to bring them some good.

From this perspective, actions performed exclusively for one’s own satisfaction must also be considered carefully. Eating, resting, enjoying oneself, improving one’s material circumstances, acquiring comforts or developing personal abilities do not automatically become acts of charity simply because they benefit the person who performs them. When an action is directed entirely towards the advantage of the person acting, it lacks the movement towards another that constitutes the proper nature of a gift. But when the same activity is ordered towards the good of others, its moral meaning changes. A person may develop an ability in order to place it at the service of others. They may acquire knowledge in order to teach, develop strength in order to help, and practise patience in order to endure the difficulties that love entails.

The decisive criterion, then, is not the mere presence of a personal ability, but the purpose to which it is directed. Strength used for one’s own exaltation differs from strength used to lift another person’s burden. The endurance of hunger sought in order to demonstrate one’s superiority differs from the endurance of hunger accepted in order to feed a hungry person. Knowledge sought in order to boast of one’s wisdom differs from knowledge acquired in order to instruct the ignorant. Charity transforms the moral meaning of human abilities because it frees them from the centrality of the self and orders them towards the good of one’s neighbour.

Human weakness and the power of grace according to Saint Paul

To understand the relationship between weakness and charity, we must distinguish two sources from which the good a person shares with others can come. The first consists of their natural resources. They can give their money, their time, their strength, their intelligence and their experience. All these goods are limited, because the creature who possesses them is limited. The second source is divine love. A person can receive from God a grace that does not arise from their natural abilities and become, in turn, an instrument through which that grace reaches other people. In this case, they are not the original source of the gift, but its channel.

The difference is fundamental. Human love, considered solely in terms of the creature’s resources, is finite. Divine love, considered in its source, is inexhaustible. A person who draws upon grace shares not only what they possess by nature, but can transmit a good that surpasses them.

How does one become a recipient of this love? Prayer, religious life, personal sanctification and trust in providence are ways through which a person opens themselves to grace. But there is a particularly significant condition: need. God favours the little ones, the poor, the afflicted, those who cannot rely on their own self-sufficiency. This preference corresponds to the very nature of mercy. If food must be distributed to two people, one of whom has a full larder while the other has nothing to eat, merciful love turns first to the second. Need establishes a priority in the exercise of giving.

Thus, in our relationship with God, weakness can become a privileged condition of receptivity. A person who acknowledges their own insufficiency disposes themselves to receive what they cannot obtain on their own. And, once they have received divine love, they can share it with others. This is the profound meaning of Saint Paul’s words in the Second Letter to the Corinthians: when I am weak, then I am strong. The strength of which the Apostle speaks is not a human ability acquired by eliminating weakness. It is the power of Christ manifested in weakness itself.

Suffering, therefore, does not necessarily have to be overcome before a person can love. It can become the place in which they receive a strength greater than their own. A person in need is not only the recipient of mercy; they can become the one through whom mercy reaches others in need. This principle prevents us from identifying holiness with self-sufficiency. Christian perfection does not consist in needing nothing, but in depending entirely on God and sharing with others what one receives from God.

Self-control and the capacity to suffer as instruments of love

The relationship between suffering and charity requires a fundamental distinction. A person may train themselves to endure hunger in order to prove that they are stronger than others. They may choose ever greater privations in order to construct an image of spiritual greatness, to feel superior to those who cannot endure them, or to present themselves before God as a person endowed with extraordinary merits. In this case, their capacity for endurance remains directed towards themselves. Suffering becomes the means through which they seek their own exaltation.

But another person may endure the same hunger for a completely different reason. They have only one loaf of bread and meet someone who is hungry. They decide to give them the bread, knowing that, by going without it, they themselves will have to endure hunger. Their capacity to withstand need is no longer a display of personal strength. It is what makes the gift possible. In the first case, the person suffers in order to assert themselves. In the second, they accept suffering so that someone else need not suffer. The moral difference does not lie in the physical sensation of hunger, which may be identical, but in the direction of the will.

The same natural ability becomes pride when it is directed towards one’s own greatness, and charity when it is ordered towards the good of others. We can thus understand the meaning of a particularly profound spiritual maxim: those who do not know how to suffer do not know how to love. This statement does not mean that suffering is good in itself, or that a person should seek it in order to become virtuous. It means that love, when it encounters a situation in which another person’s good requires a personal renunciation, demands the capacity to accept that renunciation. Those who are unwilling to lose anything for their neighbour place a limit on their love. Those, however, who can endure a privation in order to free another from a need give concrete expression to charity’s nature as giving.

The value of strength, then, does not consist in being strong, but in using strength to serve. And the value of the capacity to suffer does not consist in being able to endure much, but in being willing to endure what love requires. In this, a person imitates God. Just as God places his superiority at the service of creatures, so a person is called to place every ability at the service of others. Human greatness is not denied as a reality, but subordinated to charity. The more a person possesses, the more they can give. The greater their strength, the greater the good they can do, provided they do not make their strength a reason for personal exaltation.

Religious pride and the meaning of sacrifices

The distinction between strength ordered towards charity and strength ordered towards one’s own exaltation also enables us to understand the meaning of religious sacrifices. A person may decide to perform a penance, observe a fast or voluntarily forgo a comfort. They may do so to acquire greater self-control, or to demonstrate their strength, or to train themselves to bear the privations that serving others might require of them. These intentions are not equivalent. The capacity to withstand a privation can be useful to charity. But a privation chosen as a demonstration of personal superiority retains a selfish orientation, even when it assumes a religious appearance.

A person can go so far as to turn even a sacrifice offered to God into an occasion for personal exaltation. They may present themselves before the Lord bearing great offerings, valuable animals, riches or extraordinary privations, and regard the greatness of the offering as a demonstration of their own greatness. But what does a person possess that they have not received? The lambs and bulls they offer belong to a world created by God. The strength with which they obtained them, the wealth that enabled them to buy them, and the very life that makes the sacrifice possible are goods they have received. A person cannot, therefore, boast before God as though presenting him with something whose absolute origin lay in themselves.

This awareness runs through the prophetic and apostolic tradition. God does not need the material goods that a person offers him, and Saint Paul asks the Corinthians what they possess that they have not received. Sacrifice loses its spiritual meaning when it becomes a means of claiming an independent greatness for oneself. Its value lies not in the quantity of what is offered, but in the love and obedience that animate it.

For this reason, the capacity to suffer must be judged according to the same law. If a person fasts in order to appear strong, their endurance remains at the service of the self. If, instead, they give up their bread to feed someone who is hungry, their endurance becomes an instrument of love. In the first case, suffering is sought as a personal achievement. In the second, it is accepted as a consequence of the good brought about for another.

This distinction is decisive because it prevents us from confusing sacrifice with charity. Not every sacrifice is automatically charitable. A person can sacrifice much and love little. They can endure great privations and remain entirely preoccupied with their own spiritual image. Conversely, a materially small sacrifice can have immense value when it arises from a will directed entirely towards the good of others. Charity is measured not by the amount of suffering, but by the gift made through that suffering.

John the Baptist, Jesus and the reversal of human greatness

It is in the light of this principle that the difference between the way of John the Baptist and the way of Jesus can be understood. John the Baptist appears in the Gospels as a figure of extraordinary austerity. He lives in the desert, dresses in poor clothing, eats locusts and wild honey, and is associated with a tradition of penance and fasting. His disciples practise fasts that become a point of comparison with the behaviour of Jesus’ disciples. John thus represents an eminent form of ascetic greatness: the person who resists their needs, endures privations and orders their existence according to a strict religious discipline.

Jesus introduces something new by going beyond the principle that holiness must be measured by the human capacity to endure privation voluntarily. In the account of the temptations, Matthew states that Jesus, after fasting for forty days and forty nights, was hungry. This episode, considered in the light of all his preaching, allows us to develop a theological reading that attaches great significance to the acknowledgement of hunger and the ending of privation.

According to this interpretation, Jesus does not make indefinite resistance to need the proof of his greatness. He fully assumes the human condition, in which hunger, thirst, weariness and dependence exist. He does not present ascetic self-sufficiency as the summit of the relationship with God. The contrast with John the Baptist then becomes particularly significant. John manifests the greatness of a person capable of resisting their own needs. Jesus manifests a way in which littleness, dependence and obedience to the Father possess a spiritual superiority over the greatness of ascetic achievements.

This principle finds a point of reference in Jesus’ declaration that, among those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist, yet the least among those born of women in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. The second proposition, too, concerns those born of women. John is the greatest in the order of human greatness; the least among those born of women, considered in the order of the Kingdom, is greater than he. Since Jesus himself was born of Mary, this reading also allows his humanity to be included in the comparison.

Christ’s superiority is manifested not in competing with John in ascetic endurance, but in inaugurating a different order, in which littleness before God possesses a dignity greater than the greatness attained through one’s own abilities. The question is not who can fast for longer or endure greater privations. The question is whether human beings should seek God by asserting their own spiritual strength or by acknowledging their dependence. From this perspective, the way of Christ consists not in becoming great before God, but in making oneself little so that it is God who acts within us.

The Gospel comparison between the fasting of John’s disciples and that of Jesus’ disciples then acquires a broader meaning. When Jesus speaks of the bridegroom, the new garment and the new wine, he announces something new that cannot simply be fitted into the earlier forms of religious life. The new covenant consists not merely in intensifying already familiar ascetic practices, but in transforming the very principle of the relationship with God.

The difference does not concern whether suffering exists. Christianity does not promise a life without crosses. On the contrary, the cross stands at the centre of Christian revelation. The difference concerns the origin, purpose and meaning of suffering. In voluntary penance directed towards one’s own exaltation, a person chooses a privation as a means of asserting religious greatness. In charitable sacrifice, they accept a privation in order to bring good to their neighbour. In the way of obedience, finally, they accept the suffering they encounter while doing God’s will, without having chosen it as an instrument of their own perfection.

These three situations are not morally equivalent. The first remains directed towards the self. The second is directed towards the other. The third manifests, in its purest form, the renunciation of the primacy of one’s own will.

Renouncing one’s own will as the perfection of Christian life

The perfection of obedience introduces a decisive consideration. A person can freely choose to do good. They can decide to offer money to someone who is poor, devote a few hours to voluntary work, visit someone who is alone, or give up a comfort in order to help someone. These actions can be authentic acts of charity because they bring good to one’s neighbour. Yet they retain an element that deserves consideration: the initiative belongs to the person acting. It is they who decide to give, choose the recipient, set the time, determine the amount of good to be given and organise their action.

The exercise of charity through a gift that has been voluntarily planned is not morally bad for this reason. But it does not yet manifest the renunciation of one’s own will in its most radical form. The giver continues to exercise considerable control over the circumstances of the gift. They decide what to do and when to do it. Their will may be sincerely directed towards the good of the other, but it also remains the will that chose the occasion on which that good would be brought about.

There is, however, a form of charity in which the occasion for the gift does not arise from the benefactor’s initiative. It arises from an event they have not chosen and that may even be contrary to their wishes. Someone harms them, offends them, takes something from them or treats them unjustly. They had not planned that loss. They had not decided to deprive themselves of what is being taken from them. They had chosen neither the person who would wrong them nor the moment when it would happen. The circumstance presents itself as something they undergo.

It is precisely in this situation that a particularly high form of charity can manifest itself. A person does not choose the evil they receive, but they can choose the good with which to respond to it. They do not decide to be robbed, but they can decide to forgive the thief. They do not decide to be offended, but they can decide to forgive the offence. They do not decide to suffer a loss, but they can transform that loss into a gift. The initiative that brought about the event belongs to another; the merciful response belongs to them. Charity is exercised not within circumstances arranged by their own will, but within circumstances imposed upon them.

The Gospel meaning of self-denial can thus be understood. When Jesus asks anyone who wishes to follow him to deny themselves, take up their cross and follow him, he introduces a principle that concerns the governance of one’s entire existence. To deny oneself means to renounce making one’s own will the supreme criterion of action. It means not insisting that every opportunity for good must arise from one’s own plan, or that every sacrifice must be chosen and regulated according to one’s own preferences. Christian life does not consist simply in performing many good works decided upon independently. It consists in making oneself ready to do the good that God asks through the concrete circumstances of life, even when those circumstances contradict one’s wishes.

Renouncing one’s own will is not the same as making no decisions at all. The person who forgives must will forgiveness. The person who helps someone in need must will that help. Obedience itself is an act of the will. What is denied is not the faculty of willing, but the claim that one’s own will should independently determine the purpose, occasion and measure of every action. A person does not renounce willing the good; they renounce subordinating the good to their own plan. Their will remains active, but becomes a will that responds, accepts and obeys.

This distinction makes it possible to understand why holiness cannot be measured solely by the number of works voluntarily undertaken. A person may choose to make great sacrifices and retain a strong attachment to their own will. They may decide to fast for weeks, observe a rigorous discipline, endure extraordinary privations and thereby construct a personal project of religious perfection. Another person may encounter suffering they have not sought, accept it in obedience to God and transform it into an occasion for love. The material magnitude of a sacrifice does not necessarily determine its spiritual perfection. A brief, unchosen privation, accepted out of love, may manifest a deeper renunciation of one’s own will than a long, planned mortification.

The Gospel principle, therefore, is not to bring ever greater suffering upon oneself, but not to evade God’s will when it entails a renunciation. The cross is not, first and foremost, a privation devised by a person to exercise their own strength. It is what they encounter in following Christ and fulfilling their duties. It may be a difficulty, a loss, an effort, an illness, an offence or a burdensome responsibility. Its spiritual meaning depends on how it is accepted and on the good towards which it is directed. No suffering becomes holy merely because it is suffering. The cross sanctifies insofar as it is lived in faithfulness to God and in love.

Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane is the supreme manifestation of this disposition. Jesus does not present suffering as something his human will desires for its own sake. He asks that, if possible, the cup may pass from him, but fully subordinates his own desire to the Father’s will: “Not what I will, but what you will” (Mk 14:36). Obedience consists not in the absence of a human desire, but in renouncing its place as the ultimate principle of action. Christ does not seek the cross to demonstrate ascetic superiority. He accepts the Passion in faithfulness to the mission received from the Father and in love for humanity.

This is the decisive difference between a religiosity centred on one’s own performance and a Christian life centred on obedience. In the first case, a person seeks to build spiritual greatness through what they choose to do. In the second, they renounce considering their own greatness the purpose of existence and make themselves ready to do what is asked of them. The centre is no longer human strength, but God’s will. It is no longer the initiative of the self, but the readiness to receive a mission and respond to it.

Mercy as the eminent form of charity: the gift born of a wrong suffered

Mercy is an eminent form of charity because its gift arises precisely where a person would have grounds to claim something for themselves. Charity can freely choose a recipient and an occasion; mercy, in forgiveness, receives its occasion from an offence that was not chosen. The good consists not in approving the evil suffered, but in refusing to let that evil determine the response. The person who forgives transforms the situation that has wounded them into a possibility of good for the offender.

Imagine a man from whom a thousand euros are stolen. He had not decided to give them away and had not chosen the thief as their beneficiary. After the theft, he can ask for their return; he can also, if he considers it right and possible, forgive the debt. In this second case, a loss imposed upon him becomes, through a free decision, a good left to the other person. The difference from an ordinary donation is decisive: the giver did not choose the circumstance. His will is exercised in responding to a wrong that has already occurred.

This example illuminates the language of the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors” (Mt 6:12). To forgive a debt means to release someone from a claim one could enforce. In Luke’s Gospel, the invitation not to demand back what has been taken (Lk 6:30) reveals the radical nature of this readiness. It does not follow that every offence must be left without a remedy, or that the protection of other people must be sacrificed: personal forgiveness, restitution, civil liability and public justice are distinguishable matters. What concerns us here is the spiritual possibility of renouncing a claim when doing so can become a gift.

Forgiveness, however, is not complete if it leaves resentment intact. A person might give up asking for money and continue to hate the thief. Mercy aims at a deeper good: freeing the relationship from enmity without pretending that the wrong never occurred. The offender is not identified for ever with the evil they have committed; they remain a person for whom one can wish good. Love of enemies is the most radical form of this gratuitous giving because it responds not to a favour received, but to a wrong.

Here the connection with self-denial becomes clear. Renouncing one’s own will does not mean ceasing to will; it means not making one’s own satisfaction the ultimate law of action. The person who forgives freely wills forgiveness, but has not chosen the offence that makes it possible. Mercy thus unites two movements: the will to bring good to others and the renunciation of governing every circumstance according to one’s own interest. For this reason, and in this sense, it is the eminent form of charity.

Mercy as liberation from need, debt and suffering

Mercy possesses another essential characteristic: the good it communicates brings about liberation. Giving does not consist merely in transferring something from one person to another. It consists in removing a privation, meeting a need, alleviating suffering or freeing someone from a bond that oppresses them.

The Greek word eleos denotes mercy, pity and compassion. From it derives eleemosyne, the source of the Italian word for alms, elemosina. The Greek word eleutheria, by contrast, denotes freedom. There is no need to suppose an etymological relationship between these terms in order to recognise their relationship on the philosophical and moral level. Mercy can be understood as an act of liberation because it addresses a condition of need and brings about a good that changes that condition.

Consider a hungry man. Hunger is not merely an unpleasant sensation. It is a need that directs the will towards food. Need generates desire, and desire binds the person to the object from which he expects satisfaction. As long as hunger remains, part of his existence remains occupied by the need to obtain nourishment. The person who gives him food does not simply transfer a quantity of matter to him. They free him, at least for a time, from the bond of hunger. The gift is therefore an act of liberation.

The same structure is found in thirst, cold, lack of shelter and other bodily needs. A thirsty person depends on water; a cold person needs clothing or warmth; a person without a home depends on the possibility of finding a place of shelter. Mercy intervenes precisely in these conditions of dependence. It gives water, clothing, food, shelter and assistance. Its result is liberation from a privation that was limiting the life of the person receiving help.

But human need is not only material. Ignorance is a privation of knowledge. Doubt can prevent a decision. Affliction can oppress the soul. Guilt can create a debt. An offence can produce enmity. In these cases too, mercy brings liberation. The person who teaches frees others from ignorance. The person who counsels helps others out of uncertainty. The person who consoles alleviates pain. The person who forgives releases others from debt and hostility. The person who prays for another asks God for a good that the other is not necessarily capable of obtaining alone.

In this case, mercy unites two liberations. The debtor is freed from the debt; the person who forgives frees themselves from the will to claim what is owed to them. The recipient’s liberation comes from the benefactor’s renunciation. The good of the one arises from the act by which the other renounces imposing their own interest. A profound relationship between mercy, freedom and the renunciation of one’s own will is thus manifested.

Christian freedom is not simply the possibility of satisfying all one’s desires. A person may possess many goods and remain entirely subject to the fear of losing them. They may be rich and yet incapable of giving. They may have great strength and use it only to assert their own superiority. They may possess extensive knowledge and use it to dominate others. In all these cases, possession does not necessarily produce spiritual freedom. Freedom manifests itself, instead, when a person is no longer compelled to make their own advantage the criterion of every action.

Mercy realises this freedom in concrete ways. The person who gives renounces holding on to a good. The person who forgives renounces demanding back what has been taken from them. The person who consoles renounces considering only their own concerns. The person who teaches places their knowledge at the service of another. The person who patiently bears an offence renounces reacting according to their resentment. In each of these acts, a person frees themselves, at least in part, from subordination to their own will and makes another person’s liberation possible.

We must not conclude, however, that a person must first free themselves from every need in order to become capable of love. Such a conception would turn freedom into a precondition that might never be attained. Human beings remain creatures in need. They experience hunger, thirst, sleepiness and fear; they know illness, weakness and uncertainty. Their condition does not allow them to become perfectly self-sufficient. But this imperfection does not prevent them from loving. Indeed, it can become the place in which they receive divine mercy and learn to communicate it.

The liberation brought about by mercy has a dynamic structure. God gives to human beings because they are in need. A person receives and is freed from a privation. The good they have received can, in turn, become the means through which they free another. Mercy does not end with the relationship between a benefactor and a beneficiary. It can spread through a succession of gifts in which the person who has received becomes capable of giving.

Living by mercy every day: offences and frustrations

If mercy is the heart of Christ’s way, it cannot be reserved for exceptional gestures. Every day, a person experiences their own imperfection and encounters that of others: ingratitude, rude words, omissions, selfish acts and injustices. Their number cannot be quantified, but their frequency is enough to show that forgiveness is not a rare exercise. Taking up one’s cross daily also means learning not to respond automatically with resentment to offences we did not choose to receive.

There are also frustrations that are not actual offences. A man wakes up and finds a grey sky when he wanted a fine day. Disappointment may make him experience this circumstance as a wrong, almost as if the sky had a will and had decided to hurt him. Or he may attribute to God the intention of treating him badly. In this case, there is no sin to forgive: it is the man who, through his interpretation, has turned an event into an offender.

One may then speak, in a strictly analogous sense, of “forgiving” the grey sky, or even of “forgiving” God: not because an inanimate thing or God has committed an injustice, but because the person renounces the inner attitude through which they had judged them guilty. Forgiveness, in this figurative sense, is the overcoming of the resentment produced by the demand that everything should conform to one’s own will. It does not replace forgiveness properly directed towards a person responsible for an offence.

Saint Francis of Assisi, recalling his encounter with lepers in his Testament, says: “I showed mercy to them.” What had been bitter to him becomes an occasion for love. Francis does not merely suppress his aversion: he turns in a concrete way towards those who suffer. Mercy is therefore not simply the endurance of reality, but the transformation of an inner response into a good action. The Christian receives mercy because of their own littleness and shows it to others, even when the occasion is imposed upon them by life.

The fourteen works of mercy: the fundamental forms of charity

Catholic tradition has gathered the fundamental forms of the exercise of charity into the fourteen works of mercy, seven corporal and seven spiritual. They constitute a general classification of the actions through which a person brings good to their neighbour, responding to the different needs of that neighbour’s material and spiritual existence.

It is significant that tradition has called them works of mercy rather than simply works of charity. Strictly speaking, charity consists in freely communicating a good, while mercy is a particular and eminent form of it, in which the gift responds to a privation, suffering or even an evil received. Precisely because mercy represents one of the highest manifestations of charity, its name can be extended to designate the entire exercise of charity towards one’s neighbour. The fourteen works, which could therefore be called more generally works of charity, receive the name works of mercy because of the excellence of the latter.

The principle is that of gift and liberation. Mercy communicates a good to someone who lacks it, freeing them, at least in part, from that lack. This liberation may concern the body, the intellect, the will, the soul or human relationships. The Christian is called to place the material and spiritual goods they possess at their neighbour’s disposal, recognising that what they have received finds its fulfilment in giving.

Among these works, forgiveness manifests the excellence of mercy in a particularly radical way. The person who forgives does not choose the occasion for their generosity, since the offence has been imposed upon them by another’s will. Yet they can transform the wrong they have suffered into a gift, renouncing their claim and releasing the offender from the debt. In this way, mercy unites the freely given nature of charity with the renunciation of one’s own will, showing how even an unwanted evil can become an occasion for love.

Conclusion: living by receiving and giving mercy

The whole path follows a single direction. God is the perfect Good: he has no need to do good to himself and freely communicates good to his creatures. Human beings, by contrast, are in need and are sinners: they receive what they cannot obtain for themselves and are called to communicate it. Their perfection consists not in erasing their own littleness, but in fully accepting it, entrusting themselves to grace and learning not to make the self the centre of existence.

The Decalogue teaches us to safeguard the good: not to take life, not to take what belongs to our neighbour, not to betray promises, not to deceive. The fourth commandment teaches us to acknowledge with gratitude the good received from parents and ancestors. Christ’s new commandment brings this safeguarding to fulfilment: it is not enough to refrain from evil; we must actively communicate good, even when this entails renouncing our own interest.

Justice reveals that sin is evil; mercy reveals that God acts to free human beings from sin. They are two manifestations of the one triune God. The cross of the innocent Christ, offered for the guilty, shows the summit of love directed towards the good of others. In union with him, the Christian’s undeserved suffering too can be offered for the good of others. It is not suffering in itself that makes people holy, but the love that accepts it without seeking it and directs it towards giving.

Mercy is eminent because it enables us to give precisely when our will has been contradicted: in the face of an offence, a debt, a loss or a frustration. The person who forgives does not approve of evil, but refuses to reproduce it. The person who shows mercy does not wait to be perfect: they recognise their own need for it. Receiving and giving are not two separate chapters of Christian life, but the two moments of a single movement.

The way of Jesus is therefore the way of mercy. Christian perfection consists in the passage from egocentrism to an orientation towards the good of others, from the claim to possess and govern everything to the freedom to receive and give, from the assertion of one’s own greatness to participation in God’s love. The Christian is not someone who no longer needs mercy, but someone who has learnt to live by it and to practise it towards others every day.