Sometimes the Answer Is Too Simple, How the Church Is Teaching My Zeal to Become Mercy
There was a time when I thought spiritual awakening meant finally seeing everything clearly.
Light and darkness. Truth and error. God and evil. The saved and the deceived.
Coming out of the occult, I was alert to danger. I knew that evil was real. I knew that lies could disguise themselves as wisdom. I knew that people could wander far from God while believing they were enlightened.
That awareness was not entirely wrong.
But zeal can become its own kind of blindness.
I began with fire. I wanted truth defended, error exposed, and people warned. I believed I was learning how to recognize darkness, but I had not yet learned how easily a man can carry the truth without carrying the heart of Christ.
I had heard the Word.
I was still learning how to receive it.
My First Scripture
The first passage of Scripture I ever wrote down was Matthew 12:1–8.
Jesus and His disciples were walking through a field on the Sabbath. The disciples were hungry, so they picked grain, rubbed it in their hands, and ate it.
The Pharisees immediately objected.
They saw a violation.
Jesus saw hungry men.
Then He said:
“If you knew what this meant, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned these innocent men. For the Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath.”
At the beginning of my conversion, that passage felt like a revelation of authority.
Christ was Lord.
Coming from a world of spiritual confusion, false power, hidden knowledge, and darkness, I encountered Jesus as the One who stood above it all. He was not one teacher among many. He was Lord of the Sabbath. Lord of the law. Lord of the human heart.
That passage became the beginning of everything for me.
It led me into Scripture, Catholic teaching, the Church Fathers, and the Catena Aurea. I wanted to understand what the passage really meant. I wanted the Catholic interpretation. I wanted to know what the saints had seen in it.
For years, I thought I was learning the passage.
Now I think the passage has been learning me.
The Pharisee Is Not Always a Villain
Recently, I heard a priest reflect on this Gospel and say something that opened it again.
He pointed out that we should not laugh too quickly at the Pharisees. Their attention to small rules and precise religious details was not as foreign to us as we might think.
Catholics can do the same thing.
How long must I fast before Communion?
Does water break the fast?
Did I say the prayer correctly?
Did I fulfill the obligation?
Was this sin mortal or venial?
How exact must my confession be?
These questions can be legitimate. The Church gives us real disciplines because human beings need formation, order, and guidance.
But there is another instinct hiding beneath them.
We want certainty.
We want to know that we did it right.
We want to know where the exact boundary is.
We want to know who crossed it.
And once we become more interested in measuring the boundary than loving the person before us, something has gone wrong.
The Pharisees were not necessarily trying to become monsters. They believed they were protecting what was sacred.
That is what makes the passage so uncomfortable.
A man can believe he is defending God while failing to recognize God standing directly in front of him.
When Correctness Becomes Condemnation
Jesus did not simply accuse the Pharisees of misunderstanding a technical rule.
He said:
“You would not have condemned these innocent men.”
They were so focused on identifying wrongdoing that they created guilt where there was none.
This is one of the great temptations of religious zeal.
We begin by wanting to defend truth.
Then we begin keeping score.
Who is faithful?
Who is compromised?
Who understands?
Who does not?
Who is serious?
Who is worldly?
Who obeyed?
Who failed?
Soon, we are no longer seeing people. We are evaluating cases.
We are no longer carrying burdens. We are building indictments.
We may even believe this is courage.
I know that instinct because I have lived it.
When I first began to see the seriousness of sin, doctrine, authority, and spiritual deception, I wanted everyone else to see it too. I wanted to correct what was false and expose what was dangerous. Some of that desire came from love. Some of it came from fear. Some of it came from pride.
And some of it came from the comfort of believing that I was now standing safely on the right side. But Christ did not call me merely to identify darkness.
He called me to follow Him.
The Church Did Not Give Me a Weapon
The Church gave me truth, but she did not give it to me as a weapon for self-exaltation.
She gave me truth as medicine.
She gave me doctrine so that my mind could be healed.
She gave me confession so that my pride could be broken.
She gave me the Eucharist so that I could receive a life I could never produce for myself.
She gave me fasting so that my appetites could be reordered.
She gave me tradition so that I would not have to invent Christianity from my own wounded imagination.
She gave me authority so that I could learn obedience.
That may be one of the deepest changes of my conversion.
At first, I thought obedience meant finally discovering the correct side and defending it.
Now I see obedience as allowing the Church to keep teaching me after I think I understand.
The obedient man does not stop listening once he has found the truth.
He listens more carefully.
He becomes teachable.
He submits not only his opinions but his instincts, his reactions, his certainty, and even his zeal.
Mercy Is Harder Than Judgment
Judgment often feels active.
Mercy can feel too simple.
That is one reason we resist it.
A man wants to solve something, define something, expose something, or prove something. Mercy may ask him to do something much smaller.
Listen.
Wait.
Feed someone.
Forgive.
Remain calm.
Refuse to humiliate.
Take the can from the pantry and give it away.
I can say that I want to feed the poor. I can research organizations, compare programs, examine financial reports, consider logistics, and make certain I am giving in the most responsible way.
Prudence matters.
But after a certain point, research becomes delay.
The can is still sitting on the shelf.
Sometimes I am not discerning.
Sometimes I am avoiding the simplicity of love.
That same temptation enters fatherhood.
I can analyze my son’s behavior, identify patterns, think about discipline, examine causes, and decide what response is most correct.
All of that may have a place.
But the child is still standing in front of me.
He may not first need a lecture, a diagnosis, or a perfect plan.
He may need a calm father.
He may need food.
He may need rest.
He may need someone who refuses to join the chaos.
He may need mercy without the removal of truth.
Mercy Is Not Permissiveness
This does not mean that rules do not matter.
It does not mean that sin is imaginary or that correction is unloving.
Jesus did not abolish the Sabbath. He revealed its purpose.
The law was made to lead human beings into communion with God. Religious discipline was meant to preserve life, worship, rest, justice, and holiness.
The problem was not obedience.
The problem was obedience separated from love.
A father who never corrects is not necessarily merciful.
A Church that never teaches is not merciful.
A Christian who refuses to name sin is not merciful.
But correction without compassion becomes domination.
Truth without humility becomes pride.
Sacrifice without mercy becomes performance.
The Catholic life does not force us to choose between truth and love.
It teaches us that truth must be spoken in love, received in humility, and lived through mercy.
Salvation Is Gift
The priest’s reflection also returned me to something I am still learning.
Salvation is gift.
That sounds basic.
Sometimes the basics are the hardest things to accept.
I did not save myself by recognizing evil.
I did not save myself by finding the Church.
I did not save myself by learning doctrine.
I did not save myself by rejecting error.
I did not save myself by becoming more disciplined.
Even my desire for God was already touched by grace.
Christ found me.
The Church received me.
The sacraments formed me.
The Word confronted me.
Grace began doing what my zeal could not do.
Zeal could make me alert. - Grace had to make me merciful.
Knowledge could show me the law. - Grace had to teach me how to love.
Fear could make me flee darkness. - Grace had to teach me how to walk with God.
Understanding Means Walking
I used to think understanding meant being able to explain something correctly.
Now I think Christian understanding is proven in the walk.
Do I become more patient?
Do I become more obedient?
Do I condemn less quickly?
Do I recognize the person in front of me?
Do I notice the hungry disciples before I notice the broken rule?
Do I use doctrine to serve love, or do I use doctrine to protect my pride?
Do I trust the Church enough to remain a student?
Real understanding is not possession.
It is participation.
I understand mercy by receiving mercy.
I understand obedience by obeying.
I understand fatherhood by remaining present.
I understand the Gospel by allowing it to correct me again.
That first passage did not finish speaking when I learned its historical setting or read the Fathers.
It continued speaking through my own life.
At first, I heard:
“The Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath.”
Now I am hearing:
“I desire mercy, not sacrifice.”
And perhaps one day I will fully hear:
“You would not have condemned these innocent men.”
From Advocate to Disciple
I am still capable of zeal.
I still care about truth.
I still believe evil must be resisted, doctrine must be protected, and the faith must be handed on without compromise.
But I no longer want to be merely an advocate with fire in his hands.
I want to become an obedient man.
A man who hears the Word and allows the Church to teach him what he heard.
A father whose children experience truth without terror.
A Catholic who knows the law but sees the person.
A sinner who remembers that everything he has received is gift.
A disciple who understands that holiness may be quieter than he once imagined.
Sometimes it is not a great spiritual battle.
Sometimes it is not another argument.
Sometimes it is not another explanation.
Sometimes it is simply recognizing that someone is hungry.
Sometimes it is taking the can from the shelf.
Sometimes it is refusing to condemn.
Sometimes it is walking beside Christ through the field and learning, once again, what mercy means.