On God's Justice vs God's Mercy

I would say that Catholics read a lot less of the Old Testament than Protestants.  Personally, I think it's because of who the Old Testament is about.  And who the NEW Testament is about.

You see, the New Testament is all about one Man--Jesus.  And Protestants aren't allowed to express their artwork if it involves Jesus.  So they turn to the Old Testament, where there are literally hundreds of characters they can draw and sculpt.

But still, as Catholics, we should be studying the Old Testament a lot more than we do.  In it, we find some of the laws of justice that modern day Catholics seem to have forgotten about.  We focus on tolerance so much, we tend to forget that God will not tolerate evil.  Sure, he forgives us for the evil we do.  But we're cutting God's mercy off when we hold on to evil, when we say, "No, I will not let go of this lifestyle."

The Old Testament reminds us of what happens when people do this.  It also introduces that scary notion that God might not be completely happy with us, even after we've said we're sorry in confession and prayed the Hail Mary as a penance.  We see that God expected much more than a courtesy from His chosen people.  

Remember that God expects us to do penance sometimes, even after we're forgiven.  If you read the lives of the saints, you find out that many of them spent their entire lives being sorry and suffering for some minute sin they had committed as a child or teenager.  Sins that they've already confessed and received absolution for.  An outsider would look at it and think they were despairing over trivial matters.

But this penance is never out of despair.  It is out of love for God's mercy.  You see, when we receive something that is so good our mind cannot comprehend it (as God's mercy is), our natural inclination is to try to make ourselves worthy of it.  This is the attitude of saints who practice extreme penance.  They know they've been forgiven.  They know God is smiling at them.  So they do everything they can to pay for what they know they don't deserve.

This is how we should look at justice.  It is something we deserve, but we might escape through mercy.  And that mercy, though freely given, is never truly deserved.  Therefore, we must continue to have sorrow for and do penance for our past sins.

I think this is the reason a lot of modern Catholics spend so little time studying the Old Testament.  Because it is a reminder that we still have a lot of work to do--both on paying for the past and bettering the future.  The Old Testament shocks us out of that mode of ‘presumption' that we easily fall into.  You know what I'm talking about--"oh, it's okay... I'll just go to confession next week."

God expects more of us.  And even if God forgives our sins, we all know they'll come back to haunt us in the end.  So we should all take time to study God's justice illustrated in the Old Testament, find hope in God's mercy illustrated in the New Testament, and practice a life of penance here and now.