XI — INFINITE JUSTICE

Presence of God. — O Lord, let me know the beauties of your justice; teach me to love it with zeal and trust.

Meditation

1 — Justice, although seeming so different from mercy, is, like mercy, an aspect of God’s holiness, of his goodness, and of his infinite perfections. Indeed, more precisely, justice and mercy are two different - yet inseparable - aspects of that one love with which God loves his creatures. Mercy is love, infinite love of good, and so is justice. Mercy is manifested with justice and justice with mercy. It explains why God is just: He is also compassionate, as St. Therese of the Child Jesus says (Letter). God is merciful because He is just, and He is just because He is merciful, because, knowing our misery, He bends over us with infinite mercy.

Yet justice is distinguished from mercy; rather, justice is God’s love that gives us all that is necessary for our good, for reaching our end; mercy, instead, is God’s love that gives us much more than necessary. Justice, however, is never disjoined from mercy. First, it presupposes mercy, because, for example, God could not provide for the needs of our life - and this is the act of justice - if He had not first created in us these needs by calling us into existence - and this is the act of mercy. Then justice is always accompanied by mercy, for God always gives us far more than what would have been due to us: as creatures we were due only a state of natural happiness; God, instead, willed to call us to a state of supernatural happiness. To live as children of God, the help of grace would have sufficed; God, instead, willed also to give us the great gift of the Eucharist. To redeem the world from sin, one drop of Jesus’ Blood would have been sufficient; Jesus, instead, willed to die on the Cross. Here is mercy that always accompanies and surpasses justice, and this always intertwines with that, because God would not be infinite justice if He were not infinite mercy, and vice versa.

2 — Mercy is the outpouring of the supreme Good who communicates his goodness to creatures; justice is the zeal that defends the rights of this supreme Good who must be loved above all things. In this sense justice intervenes when the creature, trampling God’s rights, instead of loving and honoring Him, offends Him. Then comes chastisement, which punishes the sinner: chastisement that is fruit of justice but at the same time fruit of mercy: “because God chastises those He loves” (Prov. 3:12). God, in fact, does not chastise the sinner to annihilate him, but to induce him to conversion. It is precisely thus that in this life the measures of divine justice are always ordered to the use of mercy, that is, always aim to place the sinner in condition to profit from divine mercy. Therefore, even when God chastises us, He is always merciful. His chastisements are never mere punishments, but are also and above all remedies to heal our souls from sin. They remain purely punishments only for one who in no way wants to convert.

So in our spiritual life there is a continual alternation and intertwining of mercy and justice. By mercy God offers us his divine friendship; but by justice He cannot admit to his intimacy the soul that keeps the least attachment to sin and imperfection, and therefore He subjects it to purifying trials. These trials always have a twofold purpose: to make us repair our faults - and this is the purpose of justice - and to destroy in us the last roots of sin in order to dispose us for union with God - and this is the purpose of mercy. We must therefore accept our trials with humility, recognizing we deserve them. We must accept them with zeal and love of justice, willing to vindicate in ourselves God’s rights, rights we too often forget and neglect. But we must accept them with love because every trial is a great mercy of God, who wants to make us advance on the way of holiness.

Colloquy

“You have bestowed your mercy on me. Contemplating your attributes, they then all appear to me sparkling with love, even your justice; and this, perhaps even more than the others, seems to me clothed with love. What joy, O Lord, to think that You are just, that You take account of our weaknesses, that You perfectly know the fragility of our nature! What then should I fear? You, infinitely just, who deign to forgive so mercifully the faults of the prodigal son, will be just also toward me.

“It is just that we feel timid before You, God of all holiness: we must be pure. We know, however, that You are just, and this your justice, which inspires fear, forms the argument of my joy. O Lord, I hope in your justice and in your mercy, because I believe that You are also good; and I rejoice, because in punishing and chastising, You are more abundant in mercy” (T.B.G.).

“What will become of me, who must reproach myself for a multitude of errors? But where sin abounds, grace abounds. And if your mercy, O Lord, endures for eternity, I shall sing without end your goodness. Your goodness, your justice and not mine; I have no other than yours, since You are made my justice. Must I fear that one alone will not suffice for both of us? But your justice is infinite and remains for all eternity. This immense justice will cover us both; in me it will cover the multitude of my sins, while in You, O Lord, I shall need only to hide the treasures of your goodness that await me in the wounds of Christ. Here I shall find your infinite sweetness, hidden, it is true, but hidden only for those who wish to be lost” (cf. St. Bernard).