Clemency

In the name of making old things new.

(as per Ecclesiastes 1:9-14, 'What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.)

'Clement' is a word that I find is used alot in reference to the BVM in Catholic prayer. To have clemency is to have a disposition to show forbearance, compassion, or forgiveness in judging or punishing; leniency; mercy.

In terms of Buddhist notions of compassion, there is relative, objectified compassion which has a 'something' as an endpoint, be it the health of a sick person under your care, a tree that is getting topple-heavy with branches and so needs a prune or perhaps a little more abstractly, having a pro-social, pro-environmental pro-something stance to really care about, and so get active on in your one human incarnation.

There's also absolute compassion, actually being the living expression of compassion, with no objectified endpoint, this is the work of the Bodhisattva. The Bodhisattva is the wo/man in the desert who, upon climbing a high wall and seeing the oasis on the other side, does not immediately hop over the barrier and help themself to refreshment, but who stays in the desert, spotting other sentient beings who might be parched and gently guides them in the direction of quenching sustenance.

When I think about the ultimate magic trick that Jesus pulls on the Apostles, it seems inordinately similar to a Bodhisattva injunction. When he says on the night he was betrayed: 'Take this all of you and eat it, this is my body, which will be given up for you' he wasn't saying 'Hey, check out my really cool miracles while I was here incarnate on the planet, now, I want you to mirror them back to me'. I think the message might be a bit closer to 'The love that I have for you I give to you, to take inside of you. As you eat it, you are one with it. As you act, act from from here, not as an act of reflection or refraction, but acting knowing that your action is one with the notion that I am inside of you'.

And so, of our ever-clement Blessed Virgin Mary, it's possible that the refuge that we take in the Mother of Compassion who is the Mother of the Church is not so much akin to wrapping ourselves in her skirts and crying our hearts out at our sorrows (though there are days where that is absolutely necessary for this little black duck). The refuge that we take is identifying ourselves as compassion, the refuge is the internal consistency that is generated in being the movement that heals, which has no direction nor no equals sign implied.

Clemency. Origin c.1375-1425, from the Latin, clementia. Time for a re-vamp, methinks.