April 07, 2024

Dear Parishioners,

About a month or so ago I attended an event on criminal justice reform. I randomly (and providentially) sat next to one of the featured speakers of the evening, a woman named Jeanne Bishop.

Jeanne Bishop is a public defense attorney from Winnetka (my home town) who attended New Trier (my high school alma mater). In 1990 Jeanne’s younger sister, Nancy and husband were murdered in their home by a 16-year-old New Trier student, David Biro. Nancy was 25 years old and pregnant. Biro had broken into their home to rob them.

Jeanne was a lawyer at a private law firm at the time of the murders. She would quit her job, sign on to work for the state making a fraction of her previous salary, and become an advocate for abolition of the death penalty and abolition of juvenile life-sentences without parole. She wrote a book in 2015, Change of Heart: Justice, Mercy and Making Peace with My Sister’s Killer. It tells the incredible story of the murders and conviction, and how Jeanne ultimately forgave the killer and found her passion in life. To this day Jeanne visits David Biro in prison every few months. (Jeanne gave me a copy of her book, which is now in the Adoration Chapel library.)

This weekend is also known as Divine Mercy Sunday. Other than God himself and the Blessed Mother, if there’s a better image of mercy than Jeanne, I can’t think of it. Let me repeat: Jeanne lost her sister, her brother-in-law, and her niece tragically to murder. She forgave the killer. And she advocated for the killer’s life. In the book Jeanne talks about a pivotal moment in her own healing and coming to forgiveness. She was asked by her minister, “Wouldn’t it be amazing, if God used you to bring this young man into relationship, if he joined you in heaven one day?” Jeanne goes on to write…

I felt my heart, hard and rigid, cracking open. I had always made a divide between Nancy’s killer and me. Him: bad murderer. Me: innocent victims’ family member. The truth was that we were the same; there was no division between us before God. We were both flawed and fallen. We were both God’s children. I could no longer draw a line between us that put me on one side and him on the other.

When we are struggling to forgive, struggling to exercise mercy, and holding on to anger, we have unknowingly placed ourselves above the perpetrator. We have a right over the person (the right to be angry), which means we think we are better than the person. But we are not better. No one is better than someone else. Our Lord himself said, “Let he who is without sin be the first to cast a stone.” He also said, “So will my heavenly father do to you unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart.”

When we exercise mercy, we are making ourselves equal with the other. Think of that. God, who exercises mercy on us, has made himself equal to us. And equals can truly begin to love one another.

Jeanne’s mercy toward David didn’t take away the pain of having lost her family. But it has certainly relieved her of a far greater pain that would have come from harboring a grudge.

Everyone of us has someone in our life to whom we need to exercise mercy. The perpetrator’s offense is most likely not as grave as David Biro’s. Often the offender isn’t even aware that they’ve hurt us. But we need to forgive them nonetheless. The Holy Spirit will give us the grace to forgive if we ask for it, and our lives will be that much better for it.

+

We will hold a Divine Mercy Prayer Service this Sunday at 3pm in the church. We will have exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, along with a few other prayers, including a Divine Mercy Chaplet.

Our SPC School Students return this Monday from spring break. This Saturday is the second installment of the First Communion Retreat for our second graders.

Once again, a blessed Easter season to all of you. Thank you for your support of our parish.

Yours in Christ,

Fr. James Wallace