Have Mercy

By Niobe Rodrigues

Even if you find me buried in the valley
I have not wasted my time, no
He’s working on me
Don’t feel sorry for me
This is just part of the grind for me to grow
GREATER, GREATER, GREATER

Jesus is alive! Yay! Now thing start right? Is energy, is power, is vibes, is action! Is…where the disciples is? In the Upper Room lock up? Doing what? After all that drama with the crucifixion and the empty tomb and what now? That’s it? Time to lock up shop? But so we love to study the disciples. They never know what to do. Right? If I was there I woulda never behave so. Ent?

Well let’s do a little self-test. After 40 days of Lent, Lenten Retreat, plus Holy Week and the octave of Easter, where are we? We may be locked inside of ourselves. We may have left our minds and hearts at Jesus’s empty tomb.

We may have left all that we learnt in the season just past…back there. We may have died to ourselves in the past few months but not allowed ourselves to be resurrected.

The song this Divine Mercy Sunday is from the prolific artistes Nathanael and Guyanese Gospel singer, Samuel Medas. The experience of being in the valley is our Lenten journey.

Every year we go and grow through it so that we can become greater for Christ but is that really happening? Too often at the end of Lent, we may feel like Jesus is exasperated with us saying, “All this time I have been with you and yet you do not know me?”.

OK, but what did we learn about ourselves this Lent? At the end, the disciples learnt who was the traitor, who was the denier, who was the sprinter. What did you learn about yourself?

I learnt that I am not merciful. I dearly desire mercy but am ruthless and unforgiving. I am the owner of the vineyard in the Third Week of Lent, the elder brother in the Fourth Week, I am the scribe and the Pharisee ready to stone the adulteress in the Fifth Week and on Palm Sunday, I am the crowd.

Yet, I am also the servant in the vineyard, begging for the tree to be spared. I am the Prodigal Son, and I am the adulteress. I, too, need to receive mercy.

Lent is over, should I not go forward for the rest of the year being more forgiving, more patient, more compassionate, more merciful? What better time to start than Divine Mercy Sunday?

Forty days of sacrifice, repentance and self-denial is a long time. Let’s make sure the time spent was not wasted and will bear good fruit.