*“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Mt. 5:7). Today’s saint lived a life that needed mercy and he gave mercy to others. St. Callistus I was born a slave in the late 2nd century, and as a young man was put in charge of donated funds to care for Christian widows and orphans. However, he lost the funds and fled the city. He was captured and given the chance to recover the money. However, he was arrested for getting into a fight trying to collect debts. Then he was denounced as a Christian and sent to the mines. He was eventually released and taken under the wing of the pope, eventually ordained as a deacon, and put in charge of a Christian cemetery, called the Catacombs of St. Callistus, which were rediscovered in 1849. He was elected pope in AD 217.
During his papacy he was attacked for being merciful to Christians who had violated Church or civil law: 1. He admitted to Communion those who had done public penance for murder, adultery, and fornication; 2. He held as valid marriages between free women and slaves; 3. He ruled that mortal sin was insufficient to depose a bishop; 4. He allowed apostates who denied their faith during persecution back into the Church. He was martyred in AD 222.
We live in a time when mercy is hard to come by. If we do not follow the “proper” political, social, or moral standards we are cancelled and reviled. Jesus says: “But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, … then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Lk. 6:35-36).
*https://live.staticflickr.com/4129/5080579818_8a38769a52_b.jpg
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