Year of Mercy Reflection

Friday, Apr. 15, 2016
Year of Mercy Reflection
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Editor’s note: Each week during the Year of Mercy, the Intermountain Catholic will publish a short reflection written by a variety of Catholics in the Diocese of Salt Lake City: priests, deacons, religious, seminarians, Utah Catholic Schools teachers/principals, lay ecclesial ministers, religious education teachers and others. We hope you enjoy these, and that they give insight into the myriad ways mercy can be incorporated into everyday life.
 
Learning to be merciful – the hard way

I am 75 but I am fit and energetic.  I work out at the gym four days a week.  I am healthier than most men my age. But I have macular degeneration. I have a restricted driver’s license, limited to 40 miles an hour; I don’t see well enough to drive at night.
I am proud and do not like to admit that I need help, but I do. I can drive in town during daylight hours. When my wife is in the car she does all the driving, even on long road trips. I have to have a ride to the Knights of Columbus meetings at night. Many people are merciful to me. Mercy is: “kindness in excess of what might be expected or demanded by fairness.”
When people help me they are not condescending. They treat me as a valuable person with qualities and abilities. No one has put me down or made me feel “handicapped.” No one has talked down to me.  
A famous person once said, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” That is what I am learning with having to have others help me. I want to be treated with respect, as a person of value and abilities. I should treat other people the same way. A person may need help with a certain thing, but that person has other gifts and qualities. I can offer to help him or her with this one thing, but allow him/her to help me with something else. I must always treat the person with dignity as befits someone made in the image of God.
As one line in The Servant Song says: “Grant that I may have the grace to let you be my servant too.”
Tony Hanebrink
St. Joseph Parish - Ogden
 
Please help us continue this series. We need 16 more reflections to take us through to November, when the Year of Mercy ends. 
Please consider writing a Year of Mercy reflection. The criteria are that the theme must be mercy, the piece must be no more than 300 words, and the content must be in keeping with the teachings of the Catholic Church. Some possible topics are what mercy means to you, a description of a time when mercy touched your life, or a thought based on Holy Scripture. 
The reflections must be signed. No anonymous or pseudonymous reflections will be accepted.
If you have a reflection about mercy to share, please email it to marie@icatholic.org or mail to the Intermountain Catholic, 27 C St. SLC, UT 84103.

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