Jesus, Mercy Incarnate

no. 1747). In order to appreciate this, we need only consider for a moment the Catholic doctrine of Redemption. In North America, we still live in a culture with largely Protestants roots. Even today, many of us are exposed to the Protestant television evangelists; they preach to us with great passion about how Jesus “paid the price” for our sins on the Cross, suffering the penalty of retribution that our sins deserve. It is as if God’s justice demanded vengeance , “an eye for an eye,” a balancing of the books, so to speak. Mankind was lost in sin and someone had to suffer for it. So God Himself, because of His great love for us, in the person of His Son, came down from heaven and suffered the required retribution in our place. Such was the teaching of John Calvin, and it found its way into the preaching of the great French Catholic Bishop Bossuet in the 17th century, and even into the piety of some of the saints, such as St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi. 6 It is clear, however, that this is not precisely the teaching of the Catholic Church about our redemption. The mainstream Tradition of the Church takes its teaching more from St. Anselm and St. ThomasAquinas. What God’s justice demands for sin is tradition- ally termed “satisfaction;” retribution is only one of the forms that a proper satisfaction might take. In short what God’s Justice demands is to be adequately compensated , in some way, for the offence of sin, whether by retribution, or by the offering of some other compensatory gift. The problem with the Evangelical-Protestant point of view is that even if God wanted to take proper retribution for our sins upon Himself, justice would not be served. Strict justice does not say: “a sin has been committed — someone must suffer for it,” but, “a sin has been committed — the guilty party must suffer for it” (Ez. 18: 1-4). Thus, the innocent divine Son could not justly bear the retribution we deserve. As one theologian wrote: 44 Jesus, Mercy Incarnate