Oboedire "Year of Mercy: Missionaries of Mercy" by J. Steven Harper for Wednesday, 4 May 2016

Oboedire   "Year of Mercy: Missionaries of Mercy" by J. Steven Harper for Wednesday, 4 May 2016
(18) Pope Francis has commissioned missionaries of mercy--clergy who are going into the world to be living signs of God's mercy. The radical nature of his commission is that he has given these priests and bishops authority to pardon sins which formerly only the Pope could pardon.
Pope Francis refers to this as a "widening" of the mandate to show the mercy which already exists in the Church. But by widening the mandate, he declares that God's mercy is available here and now, without complicated institutional procedures to bring it to pass.
We must not overlook the highly symbolic nature of the Pope's words and actions. Everything he says and does reveals a deeper and more pervasive reality. By commissioning actual missionaries of mercy, Pope Francis is reminding the Church that it is meant to be a place of mercy everywhere and to everyone.
For non-Roman Christians, the Pope's symbolic act reminds us that we are all commissioned by God to be missionaries of mercy--everywhere and to everyone. Close your eyes and let your heart imagine what it would look like if 2.18 billion Christians (the current estimated Christian population) went into the world each day as missionaries of mercy.
It takes your breath away!
[Note: the numbers at the beginning of each meditation correspond to the section of the Pope's document on which it is based][J. Steven Harper]
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18. During Lent of this Holy Year, I intend to send out Missionaries of Mercy. They will be a sign of the Church’s maternal solicitude for the People of God, enabling them to enter the profound richness of this mystery so fundamental to the faith. There will be priests to whom I will grant the authority to pardon even those sins reserved to the Holy See, so that the breadth of their mandate as confessors will be even clearer. They will be, above all, living signs of the Father’s readiness to welcome those in search of his pardon. They will be missionaries of mercy because they will be facilitators of a truly human encounter, a source of liberation, rich with responsibility for overcoming obstacles and taking up the new life of Baptism again. They will be led in their mission by the words of the Apostle: “For God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all” (Rom 11:32). Everyone, in fact, without exception, is called to embrace the call to mercy. May these Missionaries live this call with the assurance that they can fix their eyes on Jesus, “the merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God” (Heb 2:17).

I ask my brother Bishops to invite and welcome these Missionaries so that they can be, above all, persuasive preachers of mercy. May individual dioceses organize “missions to the people” in such a way that these Missionaries may be heralds of joy and forgiveness. Bishops are asked to celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation with their people so that the time of grace made possible by the Jubilee year makes it possible for many of God’s sons and daughters to take up once again the journey to the Father’s house. May pastors, especially during the liturgical season of Lent, be diligent in calling back the faithful “to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace” (Heb 4:16).

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