Finding Hope While Pursuing Justice in Hard Places
Justice is a hard word. Out of context, it might bring to mind wood-paneled courtrooms, metal handcuffs, or even the sterile absence of care for another's unique circumstances.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, para.1807, describes justice as, "the moral virtue that consists in the constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor…. Justice toward men disposes one to respect the rights of each and to establish in human relationships the harmony that promotes equity with regard to persons and the common good." God's justice, unlike other forms of justice, always arrives wrapped in love.
God's love is infinite, personal, and unchanging.
This is really the fundamental truth of justice, the truth that brings hope even into the darkest of circumstances. But how often we struggle to receive love, much less share it! When I know how deeply I am loved and cherished, and how deeply God loves and cherishes each person around me, my search for justice can come from a confident identity.
So why does justice feel intimidating?
Let's think of occasions in which we might be striving for justice in big or little scenarios, occasions that might seem hopelessly complicated.
1. My friend has hurt me badly, and while I am at fault for a part of our disagreement, I can't seem to convince her to approach the situation fairly and see how she hurt me. Our friendship of ten years has vanished, and I still don't understand what happened. What is due to her in justice, and what is due to me?
2. I firmly believe that abortion is wrong, but I don't know how to respond to the suffering of a woman who has become pregnant after being raped. On the surface, it feels like two separate standards of justice are tugging in different directions - what is due to the woman, and what is due to the innocent child she carries?
I'll admit, I'm struggling with both these scenarios. But thankfully, justice is guided by truth, lived out in bodies and souls made in the image and likeness of God - truth that can set us free to live and love better.
Emily Ha, @inner.eminence.
Let's tackle these questions together through the lens of 3 certain truths in which I have found hope even as I search for justice.
Each human person is a body-soul composite; that is, the physical and spiritual affect each other and cannot be separated.
In the situation with my friend, I can soften my desired "just" outcome by remembering the physical and emotional difficulties she has gone through, and how those might affect her ability to come to a balanced understanding of our situation. I can also recognize that our situation was affected by my own spiritual and emotional struggles, which play into my ability to communicate on a physical level.
When considering the pregnant rape victim, this truth guides me to remember that the physical death of the child does not result in a fullness of spiritual or physical life for the mother; in fact, the opposite is true. The spiritual harm done by an intrinsically evil physical act is not some empty "Catholic guilt" but a reality that affects every aspect of the woman. When I enter into the life of a pregnant woman who has suffered so much, I can focus first on sharing God's love for her by listening - which is what she needs most in her suffering. When she knows she is cherished, and so is the innocent life in her womb, then we can begin to speak of uncomfortable justice.
The right thing isn't usually the comfortable thing.
In our fallen world, so often the just thing goes against our desire for comfort, our emotions, our first inclinations. Unless you're a saint, which I'm definitely not, it takes effort to figure out the right thing to do, and even more effort to actually do the thing.
When we speak of justice we not only have to identify what is due to each party, we need to accept that what is due to another might involve me "losing out". I may not get what I feel is due to me or what I originally think is an acceptable solution. In other words, justice is uncomfortable!
In the friendship scenario, justice involves me accepting my own faults and failings, even though it's far more comfortable to blame everything on my friend. Simple, but oh so hard. Even though I may never receive what I feel to be due to me, I can rest in the knowledge that the Lord loves both of us deeply and intimately. I can entrust her to the Lord even as I accept the separation of our hearts.
In the pregnancy scenario, we know what is the right thing — that the pregnancy be carried to term — but that justice is profoundly uncomfortable. If what is due to the baby is uncomfortable for the mother, how can I lean into that discomfort right along with the woman in front of me? We can't simply be armchair philosophers and attempt to exact that justice from a distance; rather, we are called to step into her situation. We are called to help her out, even to our own discomfort. Can I provide her opportunities for therapy, support systems, food, employment, childcare, etc.? Can I help her discern adoption, or even adopt the child myself? Can I defend her to those who misunderstand her?
The human person was not made for this world, but for the next.
My personal search for justice is always going to be limited by my very real personal limitations. We were made for eternal life, an existence we haven't yet encountered. In both cases of justice we've been exploring, this truth guides us to always include the supernatural dimension in our discernment even as we live in our very real, very broken world.
Perhaps I won't receive an apology from my former friend; but I can pray for her, accepting that her salvation is far more important than any satisfaction I want. I can remember that our good Lord loves her even more than I do, and that He holds her soul in his care.
In the case of the rape victim, I can remind myself, and others, that there's more at stake than what we can see and feel. If we were only made for success or comfort or ourselves, rather than for Heaven, we would look at this topic very differently - but because we are meant to be like God, we must make choices guided by love.
We are told in Psalm 65 that "You answer us with awesome deeds of justice, O God our savior, The hope of all the ends of the earth and of those far off across the sea."
This verse juxtaposes justice and hope, but combines both in the nature of God Himself. How can we reach for God's hope even as we strive for His justice? By embracing His truth: which is not a thing or an abstract concept, but the person of Jesus Christ, God made flesh. In His lived humanity, the Lord guides us to acknowledge the truths of our own human nature. Through these truths, and more fundamentally through a rich relationship with Truth Himself, we can strive for justice while remaining rooted in hope — or, to reverse the idea, remain rooted in justice even as we strive for hope.
Wherever you are, and whatever justice you are striving for today, may you always find hope in the truth God has written into your very being and identity. Know that Jesus Christ, your brother, who shares your nature in all things but sin, always has your back. May Truth Himself always be your light in dark places.
Meet Rebecca Martin
Rebecca Martin serves as Acquisitions Editor for Our Sunday Visitor’s trade books, and editor for Veritas, a publication of the Central Province Lay Dominicans. A native Hoosier and Christendom College alumna, she lives in southeast Michigan with her husband and three cats. She is a Lay Dominican, book addict, writer, Shakespeare fangirl, baker, and musician. You can find her on Instagram @rebecca.w.martin.