Human Person: A Prodigy of God’s Mercy

        O my God … [You] have deigned to destroy me, to form and create in me a new prodigy of mercy, and to constitute me in Your Church as a new prodigy of mercy. (OOCC, X, p.         211; STA, 398)

St. Vincent Pallotti experienced a dichotomy within himself. On one hand, he considered himself the most unworthy instrument God could use for any mission as he was “nothingness and sin.” On the other hand, he found himself crowned by God with glory and honor as he had the dignity of being the image of God. Thus, St. Vincent was torn between experiencing himself as the most unworthy and as the most dignified. Reflecting on his life, he realized that while he was indeed most unworthy, he also had been made the most dignified because of the infinite mercy of God. Thus, he believed that God in his infinite mercy had destroyed his most unworthy self and created in him a self that was crowned with glory, honor and dignity. It is this dignified self that was capable of accomplishing great things for God within the Church. Thus, for St. Vincent Pallotti, his human personality was nothing but a prodigy of God’s infinite mercy, for it was God who made his most unworthy self into the most worthy self, capable of accomplishing the plan to which God had entrusted him. Acknowledging himself as the prodigy of God’s infinite mercy, St. Vincent spent his life in gratitude, completing the mission God had handed over to him to accomplish.

Do I recognize my God-given dignity, in spite of my limitations? Do I, like St. Vincent, acknowledge myself as the prodigy of God’s infinite mercy? Do I spend my life generously accomplishing the work God has entrusted to me as the prodigy of his infinite mercy?

        What is man that you should be mindful of him, or the son of man that you should care for him? [Yet] You have made him little less than the angels and crowned him with glory         and honor. (Ps. 8: 5-6)