March 3, 2010

The Justice of God

By Sister Mary Pierre Jean Wilson, R.S.M.

Some This is the third column in a Denver Catholic Register series reflecting on Pope Benedict XVI’s 2010 Lenten message, “The justice of God has been manifested through faith in Jesus Christ.” Read the pope’s Lenten message online at www.archden.org/lent.

On Friday, an innocent man was executed and the judge declared that the guilty person should be set free because justice had been fulfilled. 

“Wait a minute!  That’s not justice!” we all cry.  We can imagine the phones jammed at the courthouse, the e-mail message box full, angry people picketing outside.

Now, let’s try a new headline: “Jesus is crucified and dies in agony; all set free from sin.”   That is divine justice.  The Divine Judge offered his own Son, who, although completely innocent of any sin, was sacrificed for each one of us, who have committed innumerable sins.

In his letter to us this Lent, our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, reflects on justice.   

The classic definition of justice is “to give each his due.”  Pope Benedict notes that this definition doesn’t tell us exactly what is “due” to be rendered to each person.  Why?  Because what is “due” according to human justice does not give us what we need the most—the love that only God can give.

In human justice, we seek to make the world more just through creating government structures and as individuals by giving material goods to the poor, the lonely, the marginalized.  Pope Benedict notes that “material goods are certainly useful and required” and that Jesus himself healed the sick and fed the hungry. 

As followers of Jesus, however, we are called to go beyond material goods, for, as the Holy Father said, although we need bread, we need God even more.  Our understanding of human dignity leads us to recognize our obligation to assist others with material goods, but as Catholics, we have the greater obligation to share God’s love with others, to share of the riches we have received.
Original sin, present within each of us, tempts us towards injustice and selfishness.  How do we escape this influence?  By acknowledging the gift given to us in divine justice.  When we realize how much we have received from God, our hearts open in love toward others.

The pope states that the only thing I must do is “to accept that I need Another to free me from ‘what is mine,’ to give me gratuitously ‘what is His.’”  That is not always as easy as it seems.  To accept a gift for which I cannot reciprocate in any degree of equality, I must admit humbly that I am not independent, that I am not “in control,” that I need God.

Sometimes our understanding of justice is so limited that it prevents us from accepting God’s love, because it doesn’t seem just.  We want things to be “fair,” to earn our way, in keeping with the American work ethic.  “Why would God do that for me?” we might ask.

The pope tells us that we may rebel against the “justice of the Cross, ... rais[ing] “an immediate objection: what kind of justice is this where the just man dies for the guilty and the guilty receives in return the blessing due to the just one?”  He continues, saying that “[c]onversion to Christ, believing in the Gospel, ultimately means this: to exit the illusion of self-sufficiency in order to discover and accept one’s own need.”  When we do that, God will respond with great generosity.

This time of Lent is a precious opportunity for us to reflect on the Cross, which sometimes looks to us like the worst kind of injustice.  In reality, it is “the ‘greatest’ justice ... that of love.”  When we have experienced divine justice, perhaps in confession, perhaps in receiving the Eucharist, perhaps during a time of adoration, or maybe in a conversation with one we love, then we want to share it. Suddenly divine justice “makes sense.”

Sister Mary Pierre Wilson is a Religious Sister of Mercy of Alma, Mich. She teaches canon law at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver.