This blog is based on references in the Bible to fear. God wills that we “BE NOT AFRAID”. Many theologians state that the eighth deadly sin is fear. It is fear and its natural animal reaction to fight or flight that is the root cause of our failings to create a Kingdom of God on earth. By “the power of the Holy Spirit” we can be witnesses and “communicators” of a new and redeemed humanity “even to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:7 8). This blog is dedicated to Mary the Mother of God.
Monday, May 20, 2019
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Monday
2 Samuel, Chapter 14, Verse 14-15
14We must indeed die; we are then
like water that is poured out on the ground and cannot be gathered up. Yet,
though God does not bring back to life, he does devise means so as not to banishanyone from him. 15 And
now, if I have presumed to speak to the king of this matter, it is because the
people have given me cause to fear.
And so your servant thought: ‘Let me speak to the king. Perhaps he will grant
the petition of his servant.
Here
David is in a quandary; his beloved son has murdered his brother and should be
punished. Yet…how can David save his living son and still be just. Joab brings in
a wise woman who points out God does not bring the dead to life but devises ways
of returning the banished.
A specific feature of the ethics of St. Thomas is that
it puts compassion and justice into the closest connection possible to each
other. “Justice without mercy is cruel”, says Thomas. But, “Mercy without justice
is the mother of dissolution"—and, one might add, therefore cruel as well.
This close connection between justice and mercy is not sufficiently obvious in
human life. The reason for this is not merely the fact that people are often
merciless. Rather, it is much more due to the finite character of human
existence, which makes all the virtues in the life of the soul appear to be
separated from each other and their exercise separate as well. This of course
also applies to the virtues of justice and charity, the juxtaposition of which
may highlight this fact of separation with particular clarity, so that justice
and mercy may sometimes appear to us as as downright opposing intentions. The
situation is different with God. “The work of divine justice always presupposes
the work of mercy and it founded in it,” says Thomas. So, if God is merciful,
then He is not in opposition to justice.
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