Welcome to my reflections on Justice, Peace, Joy, Mercy, Truth and Forgiveness....
Bishop Paul Hinder picked the Episcopal motto Justitia et pax et gaudium / Justice peace and joy. "Justice, and Peace and Joy" (Romans14: 17), is an apt summary of the life in heaven: justice, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. I thought I would venture to discuss the issues related to this verse, not least because Bishop Hinder is our Vicar Apostolic of the Province of Arabia since 2005, and covers also my own Parish of St Michael's Catholic Church in Yarmook area Sharjah Emirate, and on occasion I take my family to St Mary's Catholic Church on Oud Metha Road, Dubai. I feel that by picking this verse as his Episcopal Motto Bishop Paul Hinder chose to identify directly with St Paul's apostolic work of getting souls to heaven by teaching people how to live in the grace and light of God in such a way that we do get to heaven eventually.
The Questions
Just what is Justice? How is it related to Peace? Then again what is Joy? While we are at it, I must also append my own favourite subject, Mercy (Misericordiae), and ask: How is justice related to mercy?
Let us kick off from the biblical reference in St Paul's Letter to the Romans (14: verse17) (Douay-Rheims Bible) "For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but justice, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." There are many other versions of this verse in different bibles and editions which one can explore here.
The Latin and the French translation would partly read:
"non est regnum Dei esca et potus sed iustitia et pax et gaudium in ..."
"… ce n'est pas le manger et le boire, mais la justice, la paix et la joie"…
Justice
The issue of justice touches on matters of right and wrong under the law. Note I qualify rightness and wrongness as it applies to the law. The laws that govern our conduct are meant to be interpreted in such a way as to restitute lost value when an aggrieved person seeks restitution, or restore balance or equity when aggrieved people seek distributive justice. Sometimes it is also meant to punish the culprits in the event that an aggrieved party seeks retributive justice. All in all the purpose of justice is the restoration of the rule of law when the law has been broken. In daily politics, we have witnessed many leaders and powerful people who deign themselves above the law, as they commit heinous crimes against humanity and amass for themselves sinful amounts of wealth without regard for the state of their countrymen. The question of justice occupies many international institutions as seen by the heavy workload of United Nations Tribunals of many descriptions, the International Court of Justice and the Geneva Convention.
The restoration of peaceful co-existence among citizens of the world requires that a standard be set among people as to what is acceptable and allowable (what is right and permissible) as well as the corollary (what is wrong and not permissible). Remember the original sin by which we are all burdened at birth. The sin of Eve and Adam, the sin that separated them from God, was the sin of disobedience. They disobeyed the law set down by God, and it wouldn’t have mattered what particular law it was that they broke: eating an apple, sitting under the apple tree, eating unripe apples, collecting more apples than they could eat in one day, storing apples for resale at a profit in anticipation of an apple shortage in the upcoming market season. You can add as many acts of disobedience as you want to infinity plus one. It would not make a difference to the fact that a law was clearly stated, it was understood and interpreted correctly by all parties involved, and it was then broken by the party whose life was governed by that law, knowingly and wittingly. They broke God's law in direct breach of the terms of reference of their life in paradise, and they acknowledged openly that they had disobeyed the law. We can apply this analysis of justice to any law and to any modern day country. The conclusion is always a logical pathway that starts with the institution of the law, acceptance of the law by those governed by it, breaking or disobeying of the law and the consequences of breaking the law. In the case of Adam and Eve the consequences included banishment from the Garden of Eden, and the generational human curse of the original sin for which we now require the Sacrament of Baptism.
Peace
Peaceful co-existence requires that all who are governed by the law of the land have a common understanding of the mores and values in that land, and the appropriate code of conduct defining acceptable behaviour. Any breach of the code of conduct, by breaking the law will be met with predetermined consequences codified specifically for each act of disobedience. The law is spelt out in such a way as to present the same meaning to all who may be charged with the responsibility to interpret it. Truth is of course the main victim when justice is practiced, hence the ever present need for witnesses when the law is argued in the various courts. Truth is a victim simply because the law is by its very nature very general in the way it is written, and as such the uncertainty relating to each individual case leaves much room for arguing that "my specific matter is not quite covered by this law"… and it is this assertion that causes the arguments that echo from every courtroom in the world. The decision reached at the end of all presentations for and against the litigants is meant to restore just and peaceful coexistence among citizens. A peaceful life opens the way to joyful coexistence.
Joy
Joy is a celebration of life. It is a setting-aside of worries, grief and pain. Joy is the singing of 'Hosanna in the highest! Gloria in excelsis Deo! Halleluia! This is the day which the Lord has made, let us sing and rejoice in it!' Joy conjures images of wedding receptions, birthday parties, graduation parties and all celebrations of life both in private and in public. The hint of a smile on the face of a passing stranger could be a recent joyful memory privately remembered. A group singing carols in a park is a demonstration of the joyful occasion of the birth of Jesus, the Christ of God. It is this elusive concept of joy that makes us always seek peaceful co-existence, and it is usually justice that brings back into alignment the different interpretations of the law.
Such also is the law of God. So much so that Moses wrote five books (The Pentateuch) on the laws set by God for people to live by.
Christ came forth 700 years after Isaiah had heralded him (Isaiah 53), and he brought a new Covenant, a covenant based on the love of God, and the love of neighbour. On these two decrees the whole world would set aside all the old codes of conduct in the Old Testament. The penultimate stanza of the Pange Lingua Gloriosim reads "Tantum ergo sacramento, veneremur cernui; et antiquum documentum, novo cedat ritui; praestet fides supplementum, sensuum defectui." Yes indeed, the ancient codes of conduct are set aside by Christ's new covenant. With his new covenant the old testament rules in the pentateuch are set aside and replaced by new rules (et antiquum documentum, novo cedat ritui); and only faith is required to supplement what our feeble senses fail to grasp (praestet fides supplementum, sensuum defectui).
Mercy
The whole idea of mercy comes with one admission: the contrite and humble admission of guilt. Let us reflect on this. There is no need for mercy for a crime you did not commit. Admission of guilt is the only qualification for mercy. The mercy of God is given to the humble and contrite who acknowledge their sinful nature and have faith in Christ that their sins will be forgiven. The truth is that God's mercy is available to the humble and contrite who fear Him and are not proud because of their earthly possessions.
The sin of pride prevents us from bowing down in humility and contrition and saying we are sorry. Mercy means the setting aside of the just consequences of disobedience and replacing them with full pardon. God's mercy subsists in first recognizing the full guilt of the sinner and then setting aside their punishment because they are showing contrition from a humble heart. Even the earthly judges sometimes show mercy, what with God who is in heaven.
Forgiveness
The dimension of forgiveness in the equation of mercy for the humble guilty is that forgiveness can only be received as a result of asking for it from the forgiver. Forgiveness cannot appropriately be granted to one who is not sorry for what they did. If someone acts in a certain way and believes in their heart that it was right to do, then they will not be likely to be asking for forgiveness for that action, and neither is it appropriate for the potential forgiver to offer forgiveness before it is asked for. Many people harbour grievious physical, emotional and psychological pain as the result of the actions of others who have not come forward to say "I am sorry." The pain is from the actions both of commission and omission perpetrated against them, and also from an unrequited feeling of being the victim of wrongdoing.
The South African people went through the process of national healing by constituting the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, through which it was sought to heal the wounds sowed by the hatred, atrocities, abuses and deceptions of the apartheid era in the political history of that country. The healing process was based on full disclosure of the truth, a show of contrition, a request for forgiveness and the receiving of mercy.
The Case of Zimbabwe
My own country Zimbabwe may need to embark on a similar process in order to bring the collective spirit of the country in harmony with the developmental impetus of a united citizenry. Many souls were lost, many spirits wounded, and many bodies maimed in a long period of struggle where innocent people fell victim to the excesses of those who did not have scruples about their actions, and those who blindly followed instructions to commit atrocities. Many of these acts are typical stories in any war-torn and strife-ridden country and not unique to Zimbabwe. The particular case of the so-called Gukurahundi atrocities soon after Zimbabwe’s 1980 Independence, and the Murambatsvina displacements are often cited because they occured after the revolutionary war, and were well documented in terms of the wantonness of the atrocities and the heavy-handed approach taken to suppress dissent. The problems of Zimbabwe started well before the Chimurenga wars against colonial rule, but whatever the justification for the actions that soiled Zimbabwe with the blood of innocent people there needs to be a process of spiritual cleansing.
Even well into the twenty first century the signs of heavy handed suppression of the citizens and repressive laws that curtail free expression and movement, the disregard for the law and the constitution, and the removal of democratic space from the opposition are matters for which a process similar to the South African model of truth and reconciliation may help to ameliorate the suffering and hopelessness characterizing the aura of the country. Such a process if placed on a serious platform of sincerity and intent to heal may set the path straight for a fruitful and healthy country whose citizenry is ready to perform the work necessary for a prosperous Zimbabwe.
I personally call upon and rely on the prayerful efforts of all the people of Zimbabwe both inside the country and those of us in the Diaspora to bring back justice, peace, joy, forgiveness and mercy to our country Zimbabwe.
We need to collectively see that no effort is spared in prayerful meditation to get Zimbabwe’s leadership to a point where the starting point is truth, contrition and humility, and the end-point is mercy and forgiveness. Only then will national prosperity be truly national. No prayer is too short nor a kind word of support too shallow as we place our collective conscience as a nation to bring Zimbabwe back to sanity and eventually to harmonious prosperity.
I welcome your comments.
Albert Kumirai
Justice, Peace, Joy,
Mercy, Truth and Forgiveness
By
Albert Kumirai
In my native Zimbabwe there is a very strong voice of conscience which goes by the acronym CCJP. It stands for the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace. Well, this covers the justice and peace part of my discussion, but I will also talk of joy and of course, mercy, truth and forgiveness. Bishop Paul Hinder picked the Episcopal motto Justitia et pax et gaudium / Justice peace and joy. "Justice, and Peace and Joy" (Romans14: 17), is an apt summary of the life in heaven: justice, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. I thought I would venture to discuss the issues related to this verse, not least because Bishop Hinder is our Vicar Apostolic of the Province of Arabia since 2005, and covers also my own Parish of St Michael's Catholic Church in Yarmook area Sharjah Emirate, and on occasion I take my family to St Mary's Catholic Church on Oud Metha Road, Dubai. I feel that by picking this verse as his Episcopal Motto Bishop Paul Hinder chose to identify directly with St Paul's apostolic work of getting souls to heaven by teaching people how to live in the grace and light of God in such a way that we do get to heaven eventually.
The Questions
Just what is Justice? How is it related to Peace? Then again what is Joy? While we are at it, I must also append my own favourite subject, Mercy (Misericordiae), and ask: How is justice related to mercy?
Let us kick off from the biblical reference in St Paul's Letter to the Romans (14: verse17) (Douay-Rheims Bible) "For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but justice, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." There are many other versions of this verse in different bibles and editions which one can explore here.
The Latin and the French translation would partly read:
"non est regnum Dei esca et potus sed iustitia et pax et gaudium in ..."
"… ce n'est pas le manger et le boire, mais la justice, la paix et la joie"…
Justice
The issue of justice touches on matters of right and wrong under the law. Note I qualify rightness and wrongness as it applies to the law. The laws that govern our conduct are meant to be interpreted in such a way as to restitute lost value when an aggrieved person seeks restitution, or restore balance or equity when aggrieved people seek distributive justice. Sometimes it is also meant to punish the culprits in the event that an aggrieved party seeks retributive justice. All in all the purpose of justice is the restoration of the rule of law when the law has been broken. In daily politics, we have witnessed many leaders and powerful people who deign themselves above the law, as they commit heinous crimes against humanity and amass for themselves sinful amounts of wealth without regard for the state of their countrymen. The question of justice occupies many international institutions as seen by the heavy workload of United Nations Tribunals of many descriptions, the International Court of Justice and the Geneva Convention.
The restoration of peaceful co-existence among citizens of the world requires that a standard be set among people as to what is acceptable and allowable (what is right and permissible) as well as the corollary (what is wrong and not permissible). Remember the original sin by which we are all burdened at birth. The sin of Eve and Adam, the sin that separated them from God, was the sin of disobedience. They disobeyed the law set down by God, and it wouldn’t have mattered what particular law it was that they broke: eating an apple, sitting under the apple tree, eating unripe apples, collecting more apples than they could eat in one day, storing apples for resale at a profit in anticipation of an apple shortage in the upcoming market season. You can add as many acts of disobedience as you want to infinity plus one. It would not make a difference to the fact that a law was clearly stated, it was understood and interpreted correctly by all parties involved, and it was then broken by the party whose life was governed by that law, knowingly and wittingly. They broke God's law in direct breach of the terms of reference of their life in paradise, and they acknowledged openly that they had disobeyed the law. We can apply this analysis of justice to any law and to any modern day country. The conclusion is always a logical pathway that starts with the institution of the law, acceptance of the law by those governed by it, breaking or disobeying of the law and the consequences of breaking the law. In the case of Adam and Eve the consequences included banishment from the Garden of Eden, and the generational human curse of the original sin for which we now require the Sacrament of Baptism.
Peace
Peaceful co-existence requires that all who are governed by the law of the land have a common understanding of the mores and values in that land, and the appropriate code of conduct defining acceptable behaviour. Any breach of the code of conduct, by breaking the law will be met with predetermined consequences codified specifically for each act of disobedience. The law is spelt out in such a way as to present the same meaning to all who may be charged with the responsibility to interpret it. Truth is of course the main victim when justice is practiced, hence the ever present need for witnesses when the law is argued in the various courts. Truth is a victim simply because the law is by its very nature very general in the way it is written, and as such the uncertainty relating to each individual case leaves much room for arguing that "my specific matter is not quite covered by this law"… and it is this assertion that causes the arguments that echo from every courtroom in the world. The decision reached at the end of all presentations for and against the litigants is meant to restore just and peaceful coexistence among citizens. A peaceful life opens the way to joyful coexistence.
Joy
Joy is a celebration of life. It is a setting-aside of worries, grief and pain. Joy is the singing of 'Hosanna in the highest! Gloria in excelsis Deo! Halleluia! This is the day which the Lord has made, let us sing and rejoice in it!' Joy conjures images of wedding receptions, birthday parties, graduation parties and all celebrations of life both in private and in public. The hint of a smile on the face of a passing stranger could be a recent joyful memory privately remembered. A group singing carols in a park is a demonstration of the joyful occasion of the birth of Jesus, the Christ of God. It is this elusive concept of joy that makes us always seek peaceful co-existence, and it is usually justice that brings back into alignment the different interpretations of the law.
Such also is the law of God. So much so that Moses wrote five books (The Pentateuch) on the laws set by God for people to live by.
Christ came forth 700 years after Isaiah had heralded him (Isaiah 53), and he brought a new Covenant, a covenant based on the love of God, and the love of neighbour. On these two decrees the whole world would set aside all the old codes of conduct in the Old Testament. The penultimate stanza of the Pange Lingua Gloriosim reads "Tantum ergo sacramento, veneremur cernui; et antiquum documentum, novo cedat ritui; praestet fides supplementum, sensuum defectui." Yes indeed, the ancient codes of conduct are set aside by Christ's new covenant. With his new covenant the old testament rules in the pentateuch are set aside and replaced by new rules (et antiquum documentum, novo cedat ritui); and only faith is required to supplement what our feeble senses fail to grasp (praestet fides supplementum, sensuum defectui).
Mercy
The whole idea of mercy comes with one admission: the contrite and humble admission of guilt. Let us reflect on this. There is no need for mercy for a crime you did not commit. Admission of guilt is the only qualification for mercy. The mercy of God is given to the humble and contrite who acknowledge their sinful nature and have faith in Christ that their sins will be forgiven. The truth is that God's mercy is available to the humble and contrite who fear Him and are not proud because of their earthly possessions.
The sin of pride prevents us from bowing down in humility and contrition and saying we are sorry. Mercy means the setting aside of the just consequences of disobedience and replacing them with full pardon. God's mercy subsists in first recognizing the full guilt of the sinner and then setting aside their punishment because they are showing contrition from a humble heart. Even the earthly judges sometimes show mercy, what with God who is in heaven.
Forgiveness
The dimension of forgiveness in the equation of mercy for the humble guilty is that forgiveness can only be received as a result of asking for it from the forgiver. Forgiveness cannot appropriately be granted to one who is not sorry for what they did. If someone acts in a certain way and believes in their heart that it was right to do, then they will not be likely to be asking for forgiveness for that action, and neither is it appropriate for the potential forgiver to offer forgiveness before it is asked for. Many people harbour grievious physical, emotional and psychological pain as the result of the actions of others who have not come forward to say "I am sorry." The pain is from the actions both of commission and omission perpetrated against them, and also from an unrequited feeling of being the victim of wrongdoing.
The South African people went through the process of national healing by constituting the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, through which it was sought to heal the wounds sowed by the hatred, atrocities, abuses and deceptions of the apartheid era in the political history of that country. The healing process was based on full disclosure of the truth, a show of contrition, a request for forgiveness and the receiving of mercy.
The Case of Zimbabwe
My own country Zimbabwe may need to embark on a similar process in order to bring the collective spirit of the country in harmony with the developmental impetus of a united citizenry. Many souls were lost, many spirits wounded, and many bodies maimed in a long period of struggle where innocent people fell victim to the excesses of those who did not have scruples about their actions, and those who blindly followed instructions to commit atrocities. Many of these acts are typical stories in any war-torn and strife-ridden country and not unique to Zimbabwe. The particular case of the so-called Gukurahundi atrocities soon after Zimbabwe’s 1980 Independence, and the Murambatsvina displacements are often cited because they occured after the revolutionary war, and were well documented in terms of the wantonness of the atrocities and the heavy-handed approach taken to suppress dissent. The problems of Zimbabwe started well before the Chimurenga wars against colonial rule, but whatever the justification for the actions that soiled Zimbabwe with the blood of innocent people there needs to be a process of spiritual cleansing.
Even well into the twenty first century the signs of heavy handed suppression of the citizens and repressive laws that curtail free expression and movement, the disregard for the law and the constitution, and the removal of democratic space from the opposition are matters for which a process similar to the South African model of truth and reconciliation may help to ameliorate the suffering and hopelessness characterizing the aura of the country. Such a process if placed on a serious platform of sincerity and intent to heal may set the path straight for a fruitful and healthy country whose citizenry is ready to perform the work necessary for a prosperous Zimbabwe.
I personally call upon and rely on the prayerful efforts of all the people of Zimbabwe both inside the country and those of us in the Diaspora to bring back justice, peace, joy, forgiveness and mercy to our country Zimbabwe.
We need to collectively see that no effort is spared in prayerful meditation to get Zimbabwe’s leadership to a point where the starting point is truth, contrition and humility, and the end-point is mercy and forgiveness. Only then will national prosperity be truly national. No prayer is too short nor a kind word of support too shallow as we place our collective conscience as a nation to bring Zimbabwe back to sanity and eventually to harmonious prosperity.
I welcome your comments.
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