Intense Spiritual Crisis
St. Maximilian Kolbe (1894-1941) believed that the world is passing through a time of intense spiritual crisis:
A crisis of truth. A crisis of love.
Take identity culture (politics):
I naively identify as a pensioner.
But the employee at Centrelink says, ‘Bad luck buddy, you were born in 1963 – you don’t qualify.’’
We know ‘truth sets us free,’ but ‘identity ideologues’ are peddling ‘truth as power’ over another person and thus to be rejected.
In our time, too, mercy and forgiveness are in short supply, yet forgiveness is at the heart of our relationships because we are weak and sinful:
Forgiveness bears witness, that in our world, love is stronger than sin (CCC 2844).
Mercy draws good out of evil, something only God can do:
God is so good that in his hands, even evil brings about good (St. Augustine).
Notice the language and petition of the woman in the Gospel:
Out came a Canaanite woman from that district and started shouting, ‘Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me (Matthew 15).
This is why we ‘shout’ out our sins as Mass begins, and beg for grace:
Lord, have mercy.
A ‘moment’ of truth and love.
Amen.