"Mercy Isn’t a Way of Life, But the Way of Life, Says Pope in Final Meditation for Priests..." ZENIT in Roswell, Georgia, United States for Thursday, 2 June, 2016
Like
Tweet
Forward
Mercy Isn’t a Way of Life, But the Way of Life, Says Pope in Final Meditation for Priests by Kathleen Naab
Being merciful, and especially for a priest, is not about doing isolated acts of mercy. Being merciful, instead, is not only “a way of life”, but “theway of life”. There is no other way of being a priest.
This was part of the reflection that Pope Francis offered in his final meditation this afternoon for the Jubilee of priests and seminarians.
The final meditation was titled “The Good Odor of Christ and the Light of His Mercy,” and he gave it at St. Paul’s Outside the Walls at 4 pm
It followed on the two earlier meditations the Holy Father gave, starting in St. John Lateran at 10 a.m., and then at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore at noon.
In the lengthy meditation, that was both reflective and practical, the Pontiff considered facets of Jesus’ mercy as seen in the Gospels, particularly in consideration of the woman caught in adultery.
His talk emphasized that each of us, priests as well, are the poor ones in need of mercy.
“In the Church we have, and have always had, our sins and failings. But when it comes to serving the poor by the works of mercy, as a Church we have always followed the promptings of the Spirit. Our saints did this in quite creative and effective ways. Love for the poor has been the sign, the light that draws people to give glory to the Father,” he observed.
The Pope exhorted the priests to learn from their seminary days to have the heart of a father.
“To see needs and to bring immediate relief, and even more, to anticipate those needs: this is the mark of a father’s gaze,” he said. “This priestly gaze – which takes the place of the father in the heart of Mother Church – makes us see people with the eyes of mercy. It has to be learned from seminary on, and it must enrich all our pastoral plans and projects. We desire, and we ask the Lord to give us, a gaze capable of discerning the signs of the times, to know ‘what works of mercy our people need today’ in order to feel and savour the God of history who walks among them.”
Confessors
Speaking specifically of the sacrament of confession, Pope Francis reminded the priests that they are signs and instruments.
As signs, they have to be effective and attractive, that is, inviting people to the encounter with God through confession.
As well, they mustn’t be self-referential. A sign doesn’t exist for itself, he pointed out, but is meant to lead beyond itself.
Finally, priests have to be available.
“In my country,” the Pope recounted, “there was a great confessor, Father Cullen. He would sit in the confessional and do one of two things: he would repair worn soccer balls for the local kids, or he would thumb through a big Chinese dictionary. He used to say that when people saw him doing such completely useless things like fixing old soccer balls or trying to master Chinese, they would think: ‘I’m going to go up and talk to this priest, since he obviously doesn’t have much to do!’ He was available for what was essential. He got rid of the obstacle of always looking busy and serious.”
The Pope also offered two bits of practical advice to the priests as confessors: never look like a bureaucrat or a judge, and don’t be curious.
Culture of mercy
Pope Francis exhorted the priests to create a “culture of mercy.”
“Once we begin, we sense immediately that the Spirit energizes and sustains these works,” he said. “He does this by using the signs and instruments he wants, even if at times they do not appear to be the most suitable ones.”
Full text of Meditation 3: https://zenit.org/articles/popes-3rd-meditation-at-jubilee-for-priests-the-good-odor-of-christ-and-the-light-of-his-mercy/
The meditations can be watched at the Vatican’s YouTube channel:
‘Many of the Great Saints Were Great Sinners,’ Pope Reminds Priests by Deborah Castellano Lubov
Many of the saints were great sinners, but that made them become great practitioners of mercy.
Francis stressed this as he gave his second meditation, called, ‘The Vessel of Mercy,’ at Rome’s Papal Basilica of Saint John Lateran this morning as he spoke on the occasion of the Jubilee of priests and seminarians, June 1-3, during their retreat titled, “The Good Shepherd: the Priest as a Minister of Mercy and Compassion, Close to His People and Servant of All.”
The Jesuit Pope delivered three meditations today, starting in St. John Lateran at 10 a.m., the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore at noon, and the Basilica San Paolo Fuori le Mura at 4 p.m.
During the meditation, the Pope reflected on how the vessel of mercy is our sin, which “is usually like a sieve, or a leaky bucket, from which grace quickly drains.” Since God’s people have this habit of falling back into sin, the Lord had to teach Peter the need to “forgive seventy times seven,”the Pontiff said.
“God keeps forgiving, even though he sees how hard it is for his grace to take root in the parched and rocky soil of our hearts. He never stops sowing his mercy and his forgiveness,” Francis said, noting, “The Lord never tires of forgiving us; indeed, he renews the wineskins in which we receive that forgiveness.”
The Pontiff expressed that God recreates our hearts to be good vessels again, no longer “battered and leaky.”
Saints Were Great Sinners
“Almost all the great saints were great sinners or, like Saint Therese, knew that it was by sheer grace that they were not,” Francis reminded the priests, thinking back to Saints Peter and Paul, John, Augustine, Francis, and Ignatius. Those whose were recipients of mercy, the Jesuit Pontiff pointed out, often went on to become the “best practitioners of mercy.”
After reflecting on the saints’ conversion, he recalled the sinless Virgin Mary who is the “simple yet perfect vessel that receives and bestows mercy.” Her free “yes” to grace is the very opposite of the sin that led to the downfall of the prodigal son.
The Holy Father recalled his February visit to Mexico in which he prayed before the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Recalling her gaze, Francis told the clergy present how he prayer to Mary for priests to be good pastors.
Her Gaze
The Pontiff noted how Mary’s gaze makes faithful feel her maternal embrace.
“What people seek in the eyes of Mary is “a place of rest where people, still orphans and disinherited, may find a place of refuge, a home.” And that has to do with the way she “gazes” – her eyes open up a space that is inviting, not at all like a tribunal or an office. If at times people realize that their own gaze has become hardened, that they tend to look at people with annoyance or coldness, they can turn back to her in heartfelt humility.”
“For Our Lady can remove every “cataract” that prevents them from seeing Christ in people’s souls,” he continued, “She can remove the myopia that fails to see the needs of others, which are the needs of the incarnate Lord, as well as the hyperopia that cannot see the details, “the small print”, where the truly important things are played out in the life of the Church and of the family.”
Weaving, Complete Attention
Another aspect of Mary’s gaze to do with weaving, he noted. “Mary gazes “by weaving”, by finding a way to bring good out of all the things that her people lay at her feet.”
“Mary’s gaze is one of complete attention,” he said, noting, “She leaves everything else behind, and is concerned only with the person in front of her. Like a mother, she is all ears for the child who has something to tell her. “
To all those who come to the Church, we must show open hearts and concern for them, Francis said. “Only a Church capable of attentive concern for all those who knock on her door can speak to them of God … Unless we can see into people’s suffering and recognize their needs, we will have nothing to offer them. The Pope reminded the priests how he asked their bishops to be attentive to them, “and not to leave you, their priests, ‘exposed to loneliness and abandonment, easy prey to a worldliness that devours the heart.”
“I told the bishops: “Be attentive and learn to read the faces of your priests, in order to rejoice with them when they feel the joy of recounting all that they have ‘done and taught,’ and that, “Your fatherly care for your priests must never be found wanting. Encourage communion among them; seek to bring out the best in them, and enlist them in great ventures, for the heart of an apostle was not made for small things.”
Turning back to Mary’s gaze, Francis noted, it is “integral,” all-embracing. “It brings everything together: our past, our present and our future,” and “is not fragmented or partial.” Since “mercy can see things as a whole and grasp what is most necessary,” Francis recalled how Mary at Cana “’empathetically’ foresaw what the lack of wine in the wedding feast would mean and she asked Jesus to resolve the problem, without anyone noticing.”
Pope Francis concluded, inviting the priests to join him in praying theSalva Regina so that, “with Mary, may we be the sign and sacrament of your mercy.”
***
On ZENIT’s Web page:
Full 2nd Meditation: https://zenit.org/articles/popes-2nd-meditation-at-jubilee-for-priests-the-vessel-of-mercy/
‘Infinite Mercy Is Needed to Remedy All Evil, Suffering,’ Pope Tells Priests at St. John Lateran by Deborah Castellano Lubov
Like Christ, priests are to let mercy give meaning to their entire lives.
Pope Francis stressed this as he gave his first meditation, called, ‘From Estrangement to Celebration,’ at Rome’s Papal Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano this morning as he spoke on the occasion of the Jubilee of priests and seminarians, June 1-3, during their retreat titled, “The Good Shepherd: the Priest as a Minister of Mercy and Compassion, Close to His People and Servant of All.”
The Jesuit Pope delivered three meditations today, starting in the Basilica of San Giovanni at 10 a.m., the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore at noon, and the Basilica San Paolo Fuori le Mura at 4 p.m.
During the meditation, the Pope reflected on the parable of merciful Father and the prodigal son found in Luke’s Gospel, in which mercy is presented as an excess of God’s love. He called on those present to think to the Gospel, to the saints, and to their own lives, about moments of embarrassment and shame, when mercy was given freely.
“If, as we said, the Gospel presents mercy as an excess of God’s love, the first thing we have to do is to see where today’s world, and every person in it, most needs this kind of overflow of love. We have to ask ourselves how such mercy is to be received. On what barren and parched land must this flood of living water surge? What are the wounds that need this precious balm? What is the sense of abandonment that cries out for loving attention?”
The Pope called on the clergy to think about the “embarrassed dignity” of this prodigal yet beloved son.
“If we can serenely keep our heart balanced between those two extremes – dignity and embarrassment – without letting go of either of them, perhaps we can feel how the heart of our Father beats with love for us,” he said.
Francis pointed out how the Father seeks the sinners, noting, “He draws us to himself, purifies us and sends us forth, new and renewed, to every periphery, to bring mercy to all. That blood is the blood of Christ, the blood of the new and eternal covenant of mercy, poured out for us and for all, for the forgiveness of sins.”
“We contemplate that blood by going in and out of his heart and the heart of the Father,” Francis said. “That is our sole treasure, the only thing we have to give to the world: the blood that purifies and brings peace to every reality and all people. The blood of the Lord that forgives sins. The blood that is true drink, for it reawakens and revives what was dead from sin.”
“In our serene prayer, which wavers between embarrassment and dignity, dignity and embarrassment, let us ask for the grace to sense that mercy as giving meaning to our entire life, the grace to feel how the heart of the Father beats as one with our own. It is not enough to think of that grace as something God offers us from time to time, whenever he forgives some big sin of ours, so that then we can go off to do the rest by ourselves, alone.”
The Pope acknowledged that often priests find themselves caught between sentiments of dignity and shame, feeling “dirty, impure, mean and selfish, yet at the same time, with feet washed, called and chosen to distribute the Lord’s multiplied loaves, blessed by our people, loved and cared for.”
“Only mercy makes this situation bearable. Without it, either we believe in our own righteousness like the Pharisees, or we shrink back like those who feel unworthy,” he said. Noting mercy is a matter of freedom, the Pope called on them to accept and nurture it, rather than reject it.
“Deep down, we realize that what is needed is an infinite mercy, like that of the heart of Christ, to remedy all the evil and suffering we see in the lives of human beings… Anything less than this is not enough. We can understand so many things simply by seeing someone barefoot in the street on a cold morning, or by contemplating the Lord nailed to the cross – for me!”
To be “excessive” in responding to God’s excessive mercy, Francis went on to say, means being completely open to receiving it and to sharing it with others, just as the various examples seen in the Bible.
Pope Francis concluded, urging them to pray the Magnificat of mercy,Psalm 50 by King David, “which we pray each Friday at Morning Prayer” because “it is a Magnificat of ‘a humble and contrite heart’ capable of confessing its sin before the God who, in his fidelity, is greater than any of our sins.”
***
On ZENIT’s Web page:
Full 1st Meditation at St. John Lateran: https://zenit.org/articles/popes-1st-meditation-at-jubilee-for-priests-from-estrangement-to-celebration/
Video for Pope’s June Prayer Intentions Released by Kathleen Naab
In this Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis has been releasing video messages to illustrate his monthly prayer intentions, which are announced by the Apostleship of Prayer.
Today, the June video was released.
Videos for January-May can be viewed here: http://apostleshipofprayer.org/the-pope-video
—
The Holy Father’s universal prayer intention for June is: “That the aged, marginalised, and those who have no-one may find, even within the huge cities of the world, opportunities for encounter and solidarity.”
His intention for evangelisation is: “That seminarians and men and women entering religious life may have mentors who live the joy of the Gospel and prepare them wisely for their mission.”
—
Here is the text of the June video:
In our cities the elderly and sick are neglected. Can we ignore it? Our cities should be characterized above all by solidarity, which entails not only giving to the needy , but also taking responsibility for one another and fostering a culture of encounter.
Will you join me in my prayer? That the aged, marginalized, and those who have no one may find–even within the huge cities of the world–opportunities for encounter and solidarity.
Interview: The Secret to Spreading the Gospel Is the Gospel Itself by Antonio Gaspari
It might seem paradoxical, but the best way to counter rejection of the Gospel message is with the message itself. This is the reflection of Fr. Michael Remery, secretary of the CCEE Commission for Social Communications, who says that in order for people to accept the message of the Church, they must first hear the fundamental element of that message: the great love of God for each of us.
Fr Remery spoke to ZENIT after a seminar recently held to prepare journalists for this July’s World Youth Day in Poland.
We asked him not only about that event, but about Church communications in general, and about his own project, Tweeting with God.
__
ZENIT: How did the Seminar go in preparation for the WYD? It was the first time that it was possible to bring together so many Christian European journalists and spokesmen, no?
Father Remery: The seminar in Krakow for journalists, press spokespersons and journalists from all around Europe, organised by CCEE in preparation of World Youth Day, can indeed be called a success. In the first place, the seminar served a material goal: to collect and share information regarding the press coverage of World Youth Day in July 2016. We worked closely together with the World Youth Day organisation and the Local Organisation Committee in Krakow to obtain all the information necessary for a good preparation of the media coverage of this event from all around Europe.
The seminar also served a second aim, which is related to a deeper level of communication. The exchange between journalists and staff members of bishops’ conferences all around Europe has proved to be very fruitful in the sense that it served to create contacts between people that work in the same field, but do not always know each other. Thus the breaks between the plenary sessions and the bus trips were useful in themselves. This is the first seminar of its kind organised by CCEE, and we are very happy with the double success of the meeting in Krakow. Also during World Youth Day in Krakow, CCEE will be present and offer its help in different ways, especially to delegations and journalists from Europe.
ZENIT: In your opinion, what are the limitations of communication in the Catholic field? One is often constrained to answer criticisms and accusations. The secularized world believes that the Catholic Church is too moralist and dogmatic. What should be done to be more effective and brilliant in dealing with modernity?
Father Remery: The possibilities of communication today are virtually unlimited. As Catholics, we have many means of communication at our disposal, and I believe that we need to continue to try new methods and keep up with technological and social developments in order to spread the message that we have received from Jesus. Our Christian message is such a treasure for the entire world! Even though not everyone will be able to admit it to themselves, everybody desires to hear good news, a positive message of hope, support, consolation, prospect, even beyond the lives we live here on earth. It is up to us to spread the positive message of our faith, which can change people’s lives and bring them from darkness towards the light.
Obviously, communication is more than the means which we use: it is also and especially about the way in which we employ these means in the spreading of the Christian message. I am convinced that the best way to counter the sometimes negative way in which the message of the Church is received by our secularised European society, lays in the essence of this message itself. If you do not know the great love of God for you, it is very difficult to understand certain elements of the moral or doctrinal precepts taught by our Church. Of course we have a moral duty to denounce that which we know to be morally wrong. But often we start by saying “no” even before speaking of the big “yes” to life in all its aspects. Jesus himself started to reach out to people, building a relationship with them, going to where they were, before inviting them to embrace the love of God and to change their lives.
Too often we start with the message we want to tell, instead of with the people to whom we want to communicate. The true revolution we need in our communication is that we should start with the situation of the other person, with their questions, with their needs, with their desires. That is a very Christian approach indeed! God loves every human being. The Christian message itself is profoundly human and can be understood by everyone who honestly tries to understand his or her origin. However, in order to successfully proclaim and explain the message of the faith, we need to start where people are. All of us working for the communication of the Gospel know that in our contemporary society the message of the Church is often met with scepticism, criticism and even with accusations. However, there is no need to be discouraged by this. Obviously, where necessary, we need to make amends for our faults and change our ways. But let us never be afraid to continue to spread the Word of God to everyone.
Pope Francis is a great example of doing precisely that in today’s world. He often starts his discourse with a commonly shared value. This may be the need to care for our neighbour, for the poor, for the homeless, for the refugees, or for all those who are marginalised in other ways. But he does not stop there! Pope Francis continuously speaks about the love of God and the need for people to change their ways. The Pope speaks to the entire world. Our challenge as Catholic communicators is to pick up on his discourse and to continue it with in mind the specificity of the lives of the people we are communicating to in our local situation.
ZENIT: In what way is the revolution of the net influencing the world of communication? And what are Catholics thinking of doing? How can they not remain marginalized?
Father Remery: The novelties in online communication during the past decades can indeed be called a revolution. And I believe it is a revolution that can be of great help to our desire to communicate the Gospel. As with every instrument we use, there are certain dangers of which we need to be aware, and to limit these as much as possible. However, just as I do not stop driving my car because I might one day be injured in an accident, we should not be afraid of using the great and positive potential which is offered by online services and the internet.
If we wish to be there where people are, we also need to be present at the different online platforms with the Christian message. And when we manage to find a language that people at these platforms can understand, we can start to dialogue with them about what really matters in life. God’s message of love is eternal; it does not change. But as we are using human words and means of communication which continuously change, we also have to change the way in which we spread the eternal message. If we do not wish to be marginalised, we will have to keep up with the developments of modern communication and put them to good use.
ZENIT: You are the inventor of a project of communication to have the history and essence of Christianity known in a modern, brilliant and joyful way. Can you explain it?
Father Remery: The project Tweeting with GOD intends to start communication about the faith where people are, both offline and online, and to use a language and argumentation they can understand. It is based on 200 questions about faith and life by young people in secularised Europe. The brief answers (“Tweets”) have been formulated together with those young people, always looking for the reasons and argumentations behind the answers that theology and philosophy have to offer. The project intends to use multiplatform means to do so. Thus we have written a book called Tweeting with GOD, an application for the mobile phone, a website www.tweetingwithgod.com, brief videos, and a presence on different social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.
The aim is always to engage into a dialogue about the faith on the basis of questions by the people involved. When you start looking together for an answer to these questions, you can be sure that they will be much more interested and involved than when people have to sit through a standard class. As soon as people have discussed a few questions, they will hopefully start to see the larger picture of God’s love for them and their role within the entirety of creation. This is rather like making a jigsaw puzzle: the more pieces you have in place, the better you start to see the picture. Each of the 200 questions or Tweets of the project is like one piece of the large jigsaw puzzle of our human existence in the light of God.
The project is surprisingly successful: we launched the website in the Netherlands by the end of 2014, and today Tweeting with GOD is followed by people in over 100 countries. The book is currently being translated in more than twenty languages all around the world.
The project was started together with young people, and those running it today are almost all young people themselves. It is interesting to see that the youthful language we use to speak about the faith also appeals to people of other generations: we have followers from all different age groups.
Very recently we prepared a programme of preparation and follow-up for World Youth Day. In my own experience, the great youth event is only really successful when the young participants are well prepared, and especially when there is a follow-up project for when they come back to their countries. Tweeting with GOD has been discovered by a number of countries as a great solution to answer adequately to the many questions with which the pilgrims to World Youth Day return home. Also, it is a great help in linking the unique World Youth Day experience to everyday pastoral care and ordinary life. During World Youth Day, we will be present on the vocations market, and invite everyone interested to come and find us there. Furthermore, we shall soon be launching a few specific online World Youth Day events, about which people can find more on our Facebook and other online accounts. We do all this with the one aim to help people to get to know God, to start themselves to “Tweet with God”, and search him in their prayer.
__
Father Michel Remery is Vice General Secretary of the Council of European Bishop’s Conferences (CCEE), secretary of the CCEE Commission for Social Communications, Research Fellow Liturgy and Architecture at the School for Catholic Theology of Tilburg University, and founder of the multimedia project Tweeting with GOD. He was born in the Netherlands in 1973 and before his current function has served for many years as an assistant priest in several parishes, working especially with youth.
(See also http://www.tweetingwithgod.com/en/content/author)
Forming and Encouraging Good Shepherds by Bishop James Conley
This column was published last Friday by Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, and is reprinted here from the Southern Nebraska Register.
A few months ago, I had the opportunity to visit with the pastor of one of our small country parishes. I asked him how he was doing. We ended up talking for a full 10 minutes about fluctuating corn and bean prices, fuel and fertilizer costs, and about the impact of rain on irrigation and soil quality. He was concerned about how these factors would have an effect on crop yields, because he was worried about the farm families in his parish.
He was also thoughtful about how these factors would impact families in his parish and he understood the connections between each family, their needs, and their livelihoods. He knew that all of these issues would have an impact on both the family life and the spiritual life of his flock.
While I learned a few new things about farming from this pastor, I mostly learned how well he knows his people. How deeply he experiences their daily trials, and challenges. How much he hopes for their success, and how much he prays, in very specific ways, for their well-being.
In that conversation, I encountered a priest who loves his people. I encountered a pastor with the heart of a shepherd. In the words of Pope Francis, I encountered “a priest who wears the smell of the sheep.”
Pope Francis says that we priests “are to rejoice with couples who marry; we are to laugh with the children brought to the baptismal font; we are to accompany young fiancés and families; we are to suffer with those who receive the anointing of the sick in their hospital beds; we are to mourn with those burying a loved one.”
Priests are called to give themselves in love as a selfless gift of Jesus Christ. We’re called to proclaim the Gospel, to teach the truth, and to offer the mercy of God in the sacraments of the Church. Priests are called to know and love our people, so that we can form them in grace, and discipleship, and holiness.
A priest is called to be, as Jesus Christ is, a good shepherd, who lays down his life for his flock.
This weekend, I will ordain four new priests in the Diocese of Lincoln. I will also ordain five deacons, who, Lord willing, will be ordained priests next year. Including the eight priests ordained last year, I am blessed to ordain, God willing, 17 new priests in the Diocese of Lincoln in a span of only 24 months. Only one priest will retire during that time, giving us a net gain of 16 new priests in 24 months. We are deeply blessed and grateful to God for his goodness to us.
The Lord reminds us, in the midst of the great blessings we have received, to continue to foster a culture that promotes holy vocations to the priesthood, to religious life, and to family life. We begin by praying for vocations, asking the Lord to bless us with priestly ministers of his mercy, with religious sisters who witness to the grace of baptism, and with holy, faithful, and fervent men and women who proclaim the Gospel in their families and in the world. Each one of us can foster vocations by our fervent and earnest prayers.
The Lord reminds us to encourage young men to be open to a priestly vocation, and to encourage young women to be open to a religious call. I tell children across the Diocese of Lincoln that the Lord plants a seed of vocation in each one of us, which we must faithfully nurture. But the encouragement of a bishop is not enough. Young men consider priestly vocations, and young women consider religious vocations, because their pastors, teachers, and parents encourage them and invite them. Year after year, young men report to me that the reason they considered seminary is simply because an influential priest, teacher, or other adult invited them to consider it, and encouraged them to hear the Lord’s call.
Children take the possibility of their vocations seriously when their parents do the same: when children witness parents who pray together, and with their children, and whose lives are animated by the mission of the Gospel, they take seriously the ways in which God might call them to religious vocations.
It is a truly awesome privilege as a bishop to ordain new priests and deacons—new missionaries of mercy and truth—this weekend. It is a privilege to pray with the families and communities which formed them. May each one of us continue to form and encourage young people in their vocations, and may the Lord continue to bless us with loving pastors—good shepherds—who have a true zeal for souls.
Pope’s 3rd Meditation at Jubilee for Priests: ‘The Good Odor of Christ and the Light of His Mercy’ by ZENIT Staff
Below is the Vatican-provided translation of Pope Francis’ third meditation, titled ‘The Good Odor of Christ and the Light of His Mercy,’ at Rome’s Basilica San Paolo Fuori le Mura this afternoon, speaking on the occasion of the Jubilee of priests and seminarians, June 1-3, during their retreat titled,”The Good Shepherd: the Priest as a Minister of Mercy and Compassion, Close to His People and Servant of All.” Francis delivered three meditations today: the first was at Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano this morning, the second at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore at noon, and the third in Basilica San Paolo Fuori le Mura at 4 p.m.
Those interested can follow Pope Francis’ meditations for the clergy on major national and international Catholic television networks and in streaming on the official Jubilee of Mercy website: www.im.va. Streamed video will be offered in the original Italian and with simultaneous translations in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Polish.
***
Third Meditation: the good odour of Christ
and the light of his mercy
In this, our third meeting, I propose that we meditate on the works of mercy, by taking whichever one we feel is most closely linked to our charism, and by looking at them as a whole. We can contemplate them through the merciful eyes of Our Lady, who helps us to find “the wine that is lacking” and encourages us to “do whatever Jesus tells us” (cf. Jn2:1-12), so that his mercy can work the miracles that our people need.
The works of mercy are closely linked to the “spiritual senses”. In our prayer we ask for the grace so to “feel and savour” the Gospel that it can make us more “sensitive” in our lives. Moved by the Spirit and led by Jesus, we can see from afar, with the eyes of mercy, those who have fallen along the wayside. We can hear the cries of Bartimaeus and feel with Jesus the timid yet determined touch of the woman suffering from haemorrhage, as she grasps his robe. We can ask for the grace to taste with the crucified Jesus the bitter gall of all those who share in his cross, and smell the stench of misery – in field hospitals, in trains and in boats crammed with people. The balm of mercy does not disguise this stench. Rather, by anointing it, it awakens new hope.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in discussing the works of mercy, tells us that “when her mother reproached her for care for the poor and the sick at home, Saint Rose of Lima said to her: ‘When we serve the poor and the sick, we are the good odour of Christ’” (No. 2449, Latin). That good odour of Christ – the care of the poor – is, and always has been, the hallmark of the Church. Paul made it the focus of his meeting with Peter, James and John, the “columns” of the Church. He tells us that they “asked only one thing, that we remember the poor” (Gal 2:10). The Catechism goes on to say, significantly, that “those who are oppressed by poverty are the object of a preferential love on the part of the Church, which from her origins, and in spite of the failings of many of her members, has not ceased to work for their relief, defence and liberation” (No. 2448).
In the Church we have, and have always had, our sins and failings. But when it comes to serving the poor by the works of mercy, as a Church we have always followed the promptings of the Spirit. Our saints did this in quite creative and effective ways. Love for the poor has been the sign, the light that draws people to give glory to the Father. Our people value this in a priest who cares for the poor and the sick, for those whose sins he forgives and for those whom he patiently teaches and corrects… Our people forgive us priests many failings, except for that of attachment to money. This does not have so much to do with money itself, but the fact that money makes us lose the treasure of mercy. Our people can sniff out which sins are truly grave for a priest, the sins that kill his ministry because they turn him into a bureaucrat or, even worse, a mercenary. They can also recognize which sins are, I won’t say secondary, but that have to be put up with, borne like a cross, until the Lord at last burns them away like the chaff. But the failure of a priest to be merciful is a glaring contradiction. It strikes at the heart of salvation, against Christ, who “became poor so that by his poverty we might become rich” (cf. 2 Cor 8:9). Because mercy heals “by losing something of itself”. We feel a pang of regret and we lose a part of our life, because rather than do what we wanted to do, we reached out to someone else.
So it is not about God showing me mercy for this or that sin, as if I were otherwise self-sufficient, or about us performing some act of mercy towards this or that person in need. The grace we seek in this prayer is that of letting ourselves be shown mercy by God inevery aspect of our lives and in turn to show mercy to others in all that we do. As priests and bishops, we work with the sacraments, baptizing, hearing confessions, celebrating the Eucharist… Mercy is our way of making the entire life of God’s people a sacrament. Being merciful is not only “a way of life”, but “the way of life”. There is no other way of being a priest. Father Brochero, soon to be canonized, put it this way: “The priest who has scarce pity for sinners is only half a priest. These vestments I wear are not what make me a priest; if I don’t have charity in my heart, I am not even a Christian.”
To see needs and to bring immediate relief, and even more, to anticipate those needs: this is the mark of a father’s gaze. This priestly gaze – which takes the place of the father in the heart of Mother Church – makes us see people with the eyes of mercy. It has to be learned from seminary on, and it must enrich all our pastoral plans and projects. We desire, and we ask the Lord to give us, a gaze capable of discerning the signs of the times, to know “what works of mercy our people need today” in order to feel and savour the God of history who walks among them. For, as Aparecida says, quoting Saint Alberto Hurtado: “In our works, our people know that we understand their suffering” (No. 386). In our works…
The proof that we understand is that our works of mercy are blessed by God and meet with help and cooperation from our people. Some plans and projects do not work out well, without people ever realizing why. They rack their brains trying to come up with yet another pastoral plan, when all somebody has to say is: “It’s not working because it lacks mercy”, with no further ado. If it is not blessed, it is because it lacks mercy. It lacks the mercy found in a field hospital, not in expensive clinics; it lacks the mercy that values goodness and opens the door to an encounter with God, rather than turning someone away with sharp criticism…
I am going to propose a prayer about the woman whose sins were forgiven (Jn 8:3-11), to ask for the grace to be merciful in the confessional, and another prayer about the social dimension of the works of mercy.
I have always been struck by the passage of the Lord’s encounter with the woman caught in adultery, and how, by refusing to condemn her, he “fell short of” the Law. In response to the question they asked to test him – “should she be stoned or not?” – he did not rule, he did not apply the law. He played dumb, and then turned to something else. He thus initiated a process in the heart of the woman who needed to hear those words: “Neither do I condemn you”. He stretched out his hand and helped her to her feet, letting her see a gentle gaze that changed her heart.
Sometimes I feel a little saddened and annoyed when people go straight to the last words Jesus speaks to her: “Go and sin no more”. They use these words to “defend” Jesus from bypassing the law. I believe that Christ’s words are of a piece with his actions. He bends down to write on the ground as a prelude to what he is about to say to those who want to stone the woman, and he does so again before talking to her. This tells us something about the “time” that the Lord takes in judging and forgiving.
The time he gives each person to look into his or her own heart and then to walk away. In talking to the woman, the Lord opens other spaces: one is that of non-condemnation. The Gospel clearly mentions this open space. It makes us see things through the eyes of Jesus, who tells us: “I see no one else but this woman”.
Then Jesus makes the woman herself look around. He asks her: “Where are those who condemned you?” (The word “condemn” is itself important, since it is about what we find unacceptable about those who judge or caricature us…). Once he has opened before her eyes this space freed of other people’s judgements, he tells her that neither will he throw a stone there: “Nor do I condemn you”. Then he opens up another free space before her: “Go and sin no more”. His command has to do with the future, to help her to make a new start and to “walk in love”. Such is the sensitivity of mercy: it looks with compassion on the past and offers encouragement for the future.
Those words, “Go and sin no more” are not easy. The Lord says them “with her”. He helps her put into words what she herself feels, a free “no” to sin that is like Mary’s “yes” to grace. That “no” has to be said to the deeply-rooted sin present in everyone. In that woman, it was a social sin; people approached her either to sleep with her or to throw stones at her. That is why the Lord does not only clear the path before her, but sets her on her way, so that she can stop being the “object” of other people’s gaze and instead take control of her life. Those words, “sin no more” refer not only to morality, but, I believe, to a kind of sin that keeps her from living her life. Jesus also told the paralytic at Bethzatha to sin no more (Jn 5:14). But that man had justified himself with all the sad things that had “happened to him”; he suffered from a victim complex. So Jesus challenged him ever so slightly by saying: “…lest something worse happen to you”. The Lord took advantage of his way of thinking, his fears, to draw him out of his paralysis. He gave him a little scare, we might say. The point is that each of us has to hear the words “sin no more” in his own deeply personal way.
This image of the Lord who sets people on their way is very typical. He is the God who walks at his people’s side, who leads them forward, who accompanies our history. Hence, the object of his mercy is quite clear: it is everything that keeps a man or a woman from walking on the right path, with their own people, at their own pace, to where God is asking them to go. What troubles him is that people get lost, or fall behind, or try to go it on their own. That they end up nowhere. That they are not there for the Lord, ready to go wherever he wants to send them. That they do not walk humbly before him (cf. Mic 6:8), that they do not walk in love (cf. Eph 5:2).
The space of the confessional, where the truth makes us free
Speaking of space, let us go to the confessional. The Catechism of the Catholic Church presents the confessional as the place where the truth makes us free for an encounter. “When he celebrates the sacrament of penance, the priest is fulfilling the ministry of the Good Shepherd who seeks the lost sheep, of the Good Samaritan who binds up wounds, of the Father who awaits the prodigal son and welcomes him on his return, and of the just and impartial Judge whose judgement is both just and merciful. The priest is the sign and the instrument of God’s merciful love for the sinner” (No. 1465). The Catechism also reminds us that “the confessor is not the master of God’s forgiveness but its servant. The minister of this sacrament should unite himself to the intention and charity of Christ” (No. 1466).
Signs and instruments of an encounter. That is what we are. An attractive invitation to an encounter. As signs, we must be welcoming, sending a message that attracts people’s attention. Signs need to be consistent and clear, but above all understandable. Some signs are only clear to specialists. Signs and instruments. Instruments have to be effective, readily available, precise and suitable for the job. We are instruments if people have a genuine encounter with the God of mercy. Our task is “to make that encounter possible”, face-to-face. What people do afterwards is their business. There is a prodigal son among the pigs and a father who goes out every afternoon to see if he is returning. There is a lost sheep and a shepherd who goes out to seek him. There is a wounded person left at the roadside and a good-hearted Samaritan. What is our ministry? It is to be signs and instruments enabling this encounter. Let us always remember that we are not the father, the shepherd or the Samaritan. Rather, inasmuch as we are sinners, we are on the side of the other three. Our ministry has to be a sign and instrument of that encounter. We are part of the mystery of the Holy Spirit, who creates the Church, builds unity, and constantly invites to encounter.
The other mark of a sign and instrument is that it is not self-referential. Put more simply, it is not an end in itself. Nobody sticks with the sign once they understand the reality. Nobody keeps looking at the screwdriver or the hammer, but at the well-hung picture. We are useless servants. Instruments and signs that help two people to join in an embrace, like the father and his son.
The third mark of a sign and instrument is its availability. An instrument has to be readily accessible; a sign must be visible. Being a sign and instrument is about being a mediator. Perhaps this is the real key to our own mission in this merciful encounter of God and man. We could even put it in negative terms. Saint Ignatius talked about “not getting in the way”. A good mediator makes things easy, rather than setting up obstacles. In my country, there was a great confessor, Father Cullen. He would sit in the confessional and do one of two things: he would repair worn soccer balls for the local kids, or he would thumb through a big Chinese dictionary. He used to say that when people saw him doing such completely useless things like fixing old soccer balls or trying to master Chinese, they would think: “I’m going to go up and talk to his priest, since he obviously doesn’t have much to do!” He was available for what was essential. He got rid of the obstacle of always looking busy and serious.
Everybody has known good confessors. We have to learn from our good confessors, the ones whom people seek out, who do not make them afraid but help them to speak frankly, as Jesus did with Nicodemus. If people come to confession it is because they are penitent; repentance is already present. They come to confession because they want to change. Or at least they want to want to change, if they think their situation is impossible. Ad impossibilia nemo tenetur, as the old maxim goes: no one is obliged to do the impossible.
We have to learn from good confessors, those who are gentle with sinners, who after a couple of words understand everything, as Jesus did with the woman suffering from a haemorrhage, and straightaway the power of forgiveness goes forth from them. Theintegrity of confession is not a mathematics problem. Sometimes people feel less shame in confessing a sin than in stating the number of times they committed it. We have to let ourselves be moved by people’s situation, which at times is a mixture of their own doing, human weakness, sin and insuperable conditionings. We have to be like Jesus, who was deeply moved by the sight of people and their problems, and kept healing them, even when they “didn’t ask properly”, like that leper, or seemed to beat around the bush, like the Samaritan woman. She was like a bird we have in South America: she squawked in one place but had her nest in another.
We have to learn from confessors who can enable penitents to feelamendment in taking a small step forwards, like Jesus, who gave a suitable penance and could appreciate the one leper who returned to thank him, on whom he bestowed yet more. Jesus had his mat taken away from the paralytic, and he made the blind man and the Syro-Phoenician woman have to ask. It didn’t matter to him if they paid no attention to him, like the paralytic at the pool of Bethzatha, or told others what he ordered them not to tell, with the result that he himself became the leper, since he could not go into the towns or his enemies found reasons to condemn him. He healed people, forgave their sins, eased their suffering, gave them rest and made them feel the consoling breath of the Spirit.
In Buenos Aires I knew a Capuchin Friar. He is a little younger than myself and a great confessor. There is always a line before his confessional, lots of people confessing all day long. He is really good at forgiving. He forgives, but every once in a while he has scruples about being so forgiving. Once in conversation he told me: “Sometimes I have scruples”. So I asked him: “What do you do when you have these scruples?” He replied: “I go before the tabernacle, I look at our Lord and I tell him, ‘Lord, forgive me, today I was very forgiving. But let’s be clear, it is all your fault, because you gave me bad example!” He added mercy to mercy.
Lastly, as far as confession is concerned, I have two bits of advice. First, never look like a bureaucrat or a judge, somebody who just sees “cases” to be dealt with. Mercy sets us free from being this kind of priest, who is so used to judging “cases” that he is no longer sensitive to persons, to faces. The rule of Jesus is to “judge as we would be judged”. This is the key to our judgement: that we treat others with dignity, that we don’t demean or mistreat them, that we help raise them up, and that we never forget that the Lord is using us, weak as we are, as his instruments. Not necessarily because our judgement is “the best”, but because it is sincere and can build a good relationship.
My other bit of advice is not to be curious in the confessional. Saint Therese tells us that when her novices would confide in her, she was very careful not to ask how things turned out. She did not pry into people’s souls (cf. History of a Soul, Ms C, to Mother Gonzaga, c. XII, 32r.). It is characteristic of mercy to cover sin with its cloak, so as not to wound people’s dignity. Like the two sons of Noah, who covered with a cloak the nakedness of their father in his drunkenness (cf. Gen 9:23).
The social dimension of the works of mercy
At the end of the Exercises, Saint Ignatius puts “contemplation to attain love”, which connects what is experienced in prayer to daily life. He makes us reflect on how love has to be put more into works than into words. Those works are the works of mercy which the Father “prepared beforehand to be our way of life” (Eph 2:10), those which the Spirit inspires in each for the common good (cf. 1 Cor12:7). In thanking the Lord for all the gifts we have received from his bounty, we ask for the grace to bring to all mankind that mercy which has been our own salvation.
I propose that we meditate on one of the final paragraphs of the Gospels. There, the Lord himself makes that connection between what we have received and what we are called to give. We can read these conclusions in the key of “works of mercy” which bring about the time of the Church, the time in which the risen Jesus lives, guides, sends forth and appeals to our freedom, which finds in him its concrete daily realization.
Matthew tells us that the Lord sends his Apostles to make disciples of all nations, “teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded” (28:20). This “instructing the ignorant” is itself one of the works of mercy. It spreads like light to the other works: to those listed in Matthew 25, which deal more with the so-called “corporal works of mercy”, and to all the commandments and evangelical counsels, such as “forgiving”, “fraternally correcting”, consoling the sorrowing, and enduring persecution…
Mark’s Gospel ends with the image of the Lord who “collaborates” with the Apostles and “confirms the word by the signs that accompany it”. Those “signs” greatly resemble the works of mercy. Mark speaks, among other things, of healing the sick and casting out demons (cf. 16:17-18).
Luke continues his Gospel with the “Acts” – praxeis – of the Apostles, relating the history of how they acted and the works they did, led by the Spirit.
John’s Gospel ends by referring to the “many other things” (21:25) or “signs” (20:30) which Jesus performed. The Lord’s actions, his works, are not mere deeds but signs by which, in a completely personal way, he shows his love and his mercy for each person.
We can contemplate the Lord who sends us on this mission, by using the image of the merciful Jesus as revealed to Sister Faustina. In that image we can see mercy as a single ray of light that comes from deep within God, passes through the heart of Christ, and emerges in a diversity of colours, each representing a work of mercy.
The works of mercy are endless, but each bears the stamp of a particular face, a personal history. They are much more than the lists of the seven corporal and seven spiritual works of mercy. Those lists are like the raw material – the material of life itself – that, worked and shaped by the hands of mercy, turns into an individual artistic creation. Each work multiplies like the bread in the baskets; each gives abundant growth like the mustard seed. For mercy is fruitful and inclusive.
We usually think of the works of mercy individually and in relation to a specific initiative: hospitals for the sick, soup kitchens for the hungry, shelters for the homeless, schools for those to be educated, the confessional and spiritual direction for those needing counsel and forgiveness… But if we look at the works of mercy as a whole, we see that the object of mercy is human life itself and everything it embraces. Life itself, as “flesh”, hungers and thirsts; it needs to be clothed, given shelter and visited, to say nothing of receiving a proper burial, something none of us, however rich, can do for ourselves. Even the wealthiest person, in death, becomes a pauper; there are no moving vans in a funeral cortege. Life itself, as “spirit”, needs to be educated, corrected, encouraged and consoled. We need others to counsel us, to forgive us, to put up with us and to pray for us. The family is where these works of mercy are practised in so normal and unpretentious a way that we don’t even realize it. Yet once a family with small children loses its mother, everything begins to fall apart. The cruellest and most relentless form of poverty is that of street children, without parents and prey to the vultures.
We have asked for the grace to be signs and instruments. Now we have to “act”, not only with gestures, but by projects and structures, by creating a culture of mercy. Once we begin, we sense immediately that the Spirit energizes and sustains these works. He does this by using the signs and instruments he wants, even if at times they do not appear to be the most suitable ones. It could even be said that, in order to carry out the works of mercy, the Spirit tends to choose the poorest, humblest and most insignificant instruments, those who themselves most need that first ray of divine mercy. They are the ones who can best be shaped and readied to serve most effectively and well. The joy of realizing that we are “useless servants” whom the Lord blesses with the fruitfulness of his grace, seats at his table and serves us the Eucharist, is a confirmation that we are engaged in his works of mercy.
Our faithful people are happy to congregate around works of mercy. In penitential and festive celebrations, and in educational and charitable activities, our people willingly come together and let themselves be shepherded in ways that are not always recognized or appreciated, whereas so many of our more abstract and academic pastoral plans fail to work. The massive presence of our faithful people in our shrines and on our pilgrimages is an anonymous presence, but anonymous simply because it is made up of so manyfaces and so great a desire simply to be gazed upon with mercy by Jesus and Mary. The same can be said about the countless ways in which our people take part in countless initiatives of solidarity; this too needs to be recognized, appreciated and promoted on our part.
As priests, we ask two graces of the Good Shepherd, that of letting ourselves be guided by the sensus fidei of our faithful people, and to be guided by their “sense of the poor”. Both these “senses” have to do with the sensus Christi, with our people’s love for, and faith in, Jesus.
Let us conclude by reciting the Anima Christi, that beautiful prayer which implores mercy from the Lord who came among us in the flesh and graciously feeds us with his body and blood. We ask him to show mercy to us and to his people. We ask his soul to “sanctify us”, his body to “save us”, his blood to “inebriate us” and to remove from us all other thirsts that are not of him. We ask the water flowing from his side “to wash us”, his passion “to strengthen us”. Comfort your people, crucified Lord! May your wounds “shelter us”… Grant that your people, Lord, may never be parted from you. Let nothing and no one separate us from your mercy, which defends us from the snares of the wicked enemy. Thus, we will sing your mercies, Lord, with all your saints when you bid us come to you.[Original Text: Italian] [Vatican-provided translation]
Pope’s 2nd Meditation at Jubilee for Priests: ‘The Vessel of Mercy’ by ZENIT Staff
Below is the Vatican-provided translation of Pope Francis’ second meditation, titled ‘The Vessel of Mercy,’ at Rome’s Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore at noon, speaking on the occasion of the Jubilee of priests and seminarians, June 1-3, during their retreat titled,”The Good Shepherd: the Priest as a Minister of Mercy and Compassion, Close to His People and Servant of All.” Francis is delivering three meditations today: the first was at Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano this morning, the second at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore at noon, and the third in Basilica San Paolo Fuori le Mura at 4 p.m.
Those interested can follow Pope Francis’ meditations for the clergy on major national and international Catholic television networks and in streaming on the official Jubilee of Mercy website: www.im.va. Streamed video will be offered in the original Italian and with simultaneous translations in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Polish.
***
Second Meditation: The Vessel of Mercy
The vessel of mercy is our sin. Our sin is usually like a sieve, or a leaky bucket, from which grace quickly drains. “For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water” (Jer2:13). That is why the Lord had to teach Peter the need to “forgive seventy times seven”. God keeps forgiving, even though he sees how hard it is for his grace to take root in the parched and rocky soil of our hearts. He never stops sowing his mercy and his forgiveness.
Hearts created anew
Let us take a closer look at this mercy of God that is always “greater” than our consciousness of our sinfulness. The Lord never tires of forgiving us; indeed, he renews the wineskins in which we receive that forgiveness. He uses a new wineskin for the new wine of his mercy, not one that is patched or old. That wineskin is mercy itself: his own mercy, which we experience and then show in helping others. A heart that has known mercy is not old and patched, but new and re-created. It is the heart for which David prayed: “A pure heart create for me, O God, put a steadfast spirit within me” (Ps 50:12).
That heart, created anew, is a good vessel; it is no longer battered and leaky. The liturgy echoes the heartfelt conviction of the Church in the beautiful prayer that follows the first reading of the Easter Vigil: “O God who wonderfully created the universe, then more wonderfully re-created it in the redemption”. In this prayer, we affirm that the second creation is even more wondrous than the first. Ours is a heart conscious of having been created anew thanks to the coalescence of its own poverty and God’s forgiveness; it is a “heart which has been shown mercy and shows mercy”. It feels the balm of grace poured out upon its wounds and its sinfulness; it feels mercy assuaging its guilt, watering its aridity with love and rekindling its hope. When, with the same grace, it then forgives other sinners and treats them with compassion, this mercy takes root in good soil, where water does not drain off but sinks in and gives life.
The best practitioners of this mercy that rights wrongs are those who know that they themselves are forgiven and sent to help others. We see this with addiction counsellors: those who have overcome their own addiction are usually those who can best understand, help and challenge others. So too, the best confessors are usually themselves good penitents. Almost all the great saints were great sinners or, like Saint Therese, knew that it was by sheer grace that they were not.
The real vessel of mercy, then, is the mercy which each of us received and which created in us a new heart. This is the “new wineskin” to which Jesus referred (cf. Lk5:37), the “healed sore”.
Here we enter more deeply into the mystery of the Son, Jesus, who is the Father’s mercy incarnate. Here too we can find the definitive icon of the vessel of mercy in the wounds of the risen Lord. Those wounds remind us that the traces of our sins, forgiven by God, never completely heal or disappear; they remain as scars. Scars are sensitive; they do not hurt, yet they remind us of our old wounds. God’s mercy is in those scars. In the scars of the risen Christ, the marks of the wounds in his hands and feet but also in his pierced heart, we find the true meaning of sin and grace. As we contemplate the wounded heart of the Lord, we see ourselves reflected in him. His heart, and our own, are similar: both are wounded and risen. But we know that his heart was pure love and was wounded because it willed to be so; our heart, on the other hand, was pure wound, which was healed because it allowed itself to be loved.
Our saints received mercy
We can benefit from contemplating others who let their hearts be re-created by mercy and by seeing the “vessel” in which they received that mercy. Paul received mercy in the harsh and inflexible vessel of his judgement, shaped by the Law. His harsh judgement made him a persecutor. Mercy so changed him that he sought those who were far off, from the pagan world, and, at the same time showed great understanding and mercy to those who were as he had been. Paul was willing to be an outcast, provided he could save his own people. His approach can be summed up in this way: he did not judge even himself, but instead let himself be justified by a God who is greater than his conscience, appealing to Jesus as the faithful advocate from whose love nothing and no one could separate him. Paul’s understanding of God’s unconditional mercy was radical. His realization that God’s mercy overcomes the inner wound that subjects us to two laws, the law of the flesh and the law of the Spirit, was the fruit of a mind open to absolute truth, wounded in the very place where the Law and the Light become a trap. The famous “thorn” that the Lord did not take away from him was the vessel in which Paul received the Lord’s mercy (cf. 2 Cor 12:7).
Peter receives mercy in his presumption of being a man of good sense. He was sensible with the sound, practical wisdom of a fisherman who knows from experience when to fish and when not to. But he was also sensible when, in his excitement at walking on water and hauling in miraculous draughts of fish, he gets carried away with himself and realizes that he has to ask help from the only one who can save him. Peter was healed of the deepest wound of all, that of denying his friend. Perhaps the reproach of Paul, who confronted him with his duplicity, has to do with this; it may be that Paul felt that he had been worse “before” knowing Christ, whereas Peter had denied Christ, after knowing him… Still, once Peter was healed of that wound, he became a merciful pastor, a solid rock on which one can always build, since it is a weak rock that has been healed, not a stumbling stone. In the Gospel, Peter is the disciple whom the Lord most often corrects. Jesus is constantly correcting him, even to the end: “What is that to you? Follow me!” (Jn21:22). Tradition tells us that Jesus appeared once again to Peter as he was fleeing Rome. The image of Peter being crucified head down perhaps best expresses this vessel of a hardhead who, in order to be shown mercy, abased himself even in giving the supreme witness of his love for the Lord. Peter did not want to end his life saying, “I learned the lesson”, but rather, “Since my head is never going to get it right, I will put it on the bottom”. What he put on top were his feet, the feet that the Lord had washed. For Peter, those feet were the vessel in which he received the mercy of his Friend and Lord.
John was healed in his pride for wanting to requite evil with fire. He who was a “son of thunder” (Mk 3:17) would end up writing to his “little children” and seem like a kindly grandfather who speaks only of love.
Augustine was healed in his regret for being a latecomer: “Late have I loved thee”. He would find a creative and loving way to make up for lost time by writing hisConfessions.
Francis experienced mercy at many points in his life. Perhaps the definitive vessel, which became real wounds, was not so much kissing the leper, marrying Lady Poverty or feeling himself a brother to every creature, as the experience of having to watch over in merciful silence the Order he had founded. Francis saw his brethren divided under the very banner of poverty. The devil makes us quarrel among ourselves, defending even the most holy things “with an evil spirit”.
Ignatius was healed in his vanity, and if that was the vessel, we can catch a glimpse of how great must have been his yearning for vainglory, which was re-created in his strenuous efforts to seek the greater glory of God.
In his Diary of a Country Priest, Bernanos recounts the life of an ordinary priest, inspired by the life of the Curé of Ars. There are two beautiful paragraphs describing the reflections of the priest in the final moments of his unexpected illness: “May God grant me the grace in these last weeks to continue to take care of the parish… But I shall give less thought to the future, I shall work in the present. I feel such work is within my power. For I only succeed in small things, and when I am tried by anxiety, I am bound to say that it is the small things that release me”. Here we see a small vessel of mercy, one that has to do with the minuscule joys of our pastoral life, where we receive and bestow the infinite mercy of the Father in little gestures.
The other paragraph says: “It is all over now. The strange mistrust I had of myself, of my own being, has flown, I believe for ever. That conflict is done. I cannot understand it any more. I am reconciled to myself, to the poor, poor shell of me. How easy it is to hate oneself. True grace is to forget. Yet if pride could die in us, the supreme grace would be to love oneself in all simplicity – as one would love any of those who themselves have suffered and loved in Christ”. This is the vessel: “to love oneself in all simplicity, as one would love any of those who themselves have suffered and loved in Christ”. It is an ordinary vessel, like an old jar we can borrow even from the poor.
Blessed José Gabriel del Rosario Brochero, the Argentinian priest soon to be canonized, “let his heart be shaped by the mercy of God”. In the end, his vessel was his own leprous body. He wanted to die on horseback, crossing a mountain stream on the way to anoint a sick person. Among the last things he said was: “There is no ultimate glory in this life”; “I am quite happy with what God has done with me regarding my sight, and I thank him for that. While I could serve other people, he kept my senses whole and strong. Today, when I can no longer do so, he has taken away one of my physical senses. In this world there is no ultimate glory, and we have our more than enough misery”. Often our work remains unfinished, so being at peace with that is always a grace. We are allowed to “let things go”, so that the Lord can bless and perfect them. We shouldn’t be overly concerned. In this way, we can be open to the pain and joy of our brothers and sisters. Cardinal Van Thuan used to say that, in prison, the Lord taught him to distinguish between “God’s business”, to which he was devoted in his free life as priest and bishop, and God himself, to whom he was devoted during his imprisonment (Five Loaves and Two Fish, Pauline Books and Media, 2003).
Mary as vessel and source of mercy
Ascending the stairway of the saints in our pursuit of vessels of mercy, we come at last to Our Lady. She is the simple yet perfect vessel that both receives and bestows mercy. Her free “yes” to grace is the very opposite of the sin that led to the downfall of the prodigal son. Her mercy is very much her own, very much our own and very much that of the Church. As she says in the Magnificat, she knows that God has looked with favour upon her humility and she recognizes that his mercy is from generation to generation. Mary can see the working of this mercy and she feels “embraced”, together with all of Israel, by it. She treasures in her heart the memory and promise of God’s infinite mercy for his people. Hers is the Magnificat of a pure and overflowing heart that sees all of history and each individual person with a mother’s mercy.
During the moments I was able to spend alone with Mary during my visit to Mexico, as I gazed at Our Lady, the Virgin of Guadalupe and I let her gaze at me, I prayed for you, dear priests, to be good pastors of souls. In my address to the bishops, I mentioned that I have often reflected on the mystery of Mary’s gaze, its tenderness and its sweetness that give us the courage to open our hearts to God’s mercy. I would now like to reflect with you on a few of the ways that Our Lady “gazes” especially at priests, since through us she wants to gaze at her people.
Mary’s gaze makes us feel her maternal embrace. She shows us that “the only power capable of winning human hearts is the tenderness of God. What delights and attracts, humbles and overcomes, opens and unleashes is not the power of instruments or the force of the law, but rather the omnipotent weakness of divine love, which is the irresistible force of its gentleness and the irrevocable pledge of its mercy” (Address to the Mexican Bishops, 13 February 2016). What people seek in the eyes of Mary is “a place of rest where people, still orphans and disinherited, may find a place of refuge, a home.” And that has to do with the way she “gazes” – her eyes open up a space that is inviting, not at all like a tribunal or an office. If at times people realize that their own gaze has become hardened, that they tend to look at people with annoyance or coldness, they can turn back to her in heartfelt humility. For Our Lady can remove every “cataract” that prevents them from seeing Christ in people’s souls. She can remove the myopia that fails to see the needs of others, which are the needs of the incarnate Lord, as well as the hyperopia that cannot see the details, “the small print”, where the truly important things are played out in the life of the Church and of the family.
Another aspect of Mary’s gaze to do with weaving. Mary gazes “by weaving”, by finding a way to bring good out of all the things that her people lay at her feet. I told the Mexican bishops that, “in the mantle of the Mexican soul, with the thread of its mestizo features, God has woven in la Morenita the face by which he wishes to be known”. A spiritual master teaches us that “whatever is said of Mary specially is said of the Church universally and of each soul individually” (cf. Isaac of Stella,Serm. 51: PL 194, 1863). If we consider how God wove the face and figure of Our Lady of Guadalupe into Juan Diego’s cloak, we can prayerfully ponder how he is weaving our soul and the life of the whole Church.
They say that it is impossible to see how the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was “painted”; it seems to have been somehow “imprinted”. I like to think that the miracle was not only that the image was imprinted or painted, but that the entire cloak was re-created, transformed from top to bottom. Each thread – those threads of maguey leaf that women had learned from childhood to weave for their finest garments – was transfigured in its place, and, interwoven with all the others, revealed the face of our Lady, her presence and her surroundings. God’s mercy does the same thing. It doesn’t “paint” us a pretty face, or airbrush the reality of who we are. Rather, with the very threads of our poverty and sinfulness, interwoven with the Father’s love, it so weaves us that our soul is renewed and recovers its true image, the image of Jesus. So be priests “capable of imitating this freedom of God, who chooses the humble in order to reveal the majesty of his countenance, priests capable of imitating God’s patience by weaving the new humanity which your country awaits with the fine thread of all those whom you encounter. Don’t give into the temptation to go elsewhere, as if the love of God were not powerful enough to bring about change” (Address to the Mexican Bishops, 13 February 2016).
A third aspect is that of attentive care. Mary’s gaze is one of complete attention. She leaves everything else behind, and is concerned only with the person in front of her. Like a mother, she is all ears for the child who has something to tell her. “As the wonderful Guadalupe tradition teaches us, la Morenita treasures the gaze of all those who look to her; she reflects the faces of all who come to her. There is something unique in the face of every person who comes to us looking for God. We need to realize this, to open our hearts and to show concern for them. Only a Church capable of attentive concern for all those who knock on her door can speak to them of God. Unless we can see into people’s suffering and recognize their needs, we will have nothing to offer them. The riches we possess only flow forth when we truly encounter the needs of others, and this encounter take places precisely in our heart as pastors” (ibid.). I asked your bishops to be attentive to you, their priests, and not to leave you “exposed to loneliness and abandonment, easy prey to a worldliness that devours the heart” (ibid.). The world is watching us closely, in order to “devour” us, to make us consumers… All of us need attention, a gaze of genuine concern. As I told the bishops: “Be attentive and learn to read the faces of your priests, in order to rejoice with them when they feel the joy of recounting all that they have ‘done and taught’ (Mk 6:30). Also do not step back when they are humbled and can only weep because they ‘have denied the Lord’ (cf. Lk 22:61-62). Offer your support, in communion with Christ, whenever one of them, discouraged, goes out with Judas into ‘the night’ (cf. Jn13:30). In these situations your fatherly care for your priests must never be found wanting. Encourage communion among them; seek to bring out the best in them, and enlist them in great ventures, for the heart of an apostle was not made for small things” (ibid.).
Lastly, Mary’s gaze is “integral”, all-embracing. It brings everything together: our past, our present and our future. It is not fragmented or partial: mercy can see things as a whole and grasp what is most necessary. At Cana, Mary “empathetically” foresaw what the lack of wine in the wedding feast would mean and she asked Jesus to resolve the problem, without anyone noticing. We can see our entire priestly life as somehow “foreseen” by Mary’s mercy; she sees beforehand the things we lack and provides for them. If there is any “good wine” present in our lives, it is due not to our own merits but to her “anticipated mercy”. In the Magnificat, she proclaims how the Lord “looked with favour on her loneliness” and “remembered his (covenant of) mercy”, a “mercy shown from generation to generation” to the poor and the downtrodden. For Mary, history is mercy.
We can conclude by praying the Salva Regina. The words of this prayer are vibrant with the mystery of the Magnificat. Mary is the Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope. Her eyes of mercy are surely the greatest vessel of mercy, for their gaze enables us to drink in that kindness and goodness for which we hunger with a yearning that a look of love alone can satisfy. Her eyes of mercy also enable us to see God’s mercy at work in human history and to find Jesus in the faces of our brothers and sisters. In Mary, we catch a glimpse of the promised land – the Kingdom of mercy established by our Lord – already present in this life beyond the exile into which sin leads us. From her hand and beneath her gaze, we can joyfully proclaim the greatness of the Lord. To Mary we can say: My soul sings of you, Lord, for you have looked with favour on the lowliness and humility of your servant. How blessed I am, to have been forgiven. Your mercy, Lord, that you showed to your saints and to all your faithful people, you have also shown to me. I was lost, seeking only myself, in the arrogance of my heart, yet I found no glory. My only glory is that your Mother has embraced me, covered me with her mantle, and drawn me to her heart. I want to be loved as one of your little ones. I want to feed with your bread all those who hunger for you. Remember, Lord, your covenant of mercy with your sons, the priests of your people. With Mary, may we be the sign and sacrament of your mercy.[Original Text: Italian] [Vatican-provided translation]
Pope’s 1st Meditation at Jubilee for Priests: ‘From Estrangement to Celebration’ by ZENIT Staff
Below is the Vatican-provided translation of Pope Francis’ first meditation, titled ‘From Estrangement to Celebration,’ at Rome’s Papal Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano at 10 o’clock this morning, speaking on the occasion of the Jubilee of priests and seminarians, June 1-3. During their retreat titled, “The Good Shepherd: the Priest as a Minister of Mercy and Compassion, Close to His People and Servant of All,” Francis is delivering three meditations today, one after another, starting in the Basilica of San Giovanni, then in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore at noon, and lastly in Basilica San Paolo Fuori le Mura at 4 p.m.
Those interested can follow Pope Francis’ meditations for the clergy on major national and international Catholic television networks and in streaming on the official Jubilee of Mercy website: www.im.va. Streamed video will be offered in the original Italian and with simultaneous translations in English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Polish.
***
First Meditation: from estrangement to celebration
If, as we said, the Gospel presents mercy as an excess of God’s love, the first thing we have to do is to see where today’s world, and every person in it, most needs this kind of overflow of love. We have to ask ourselves how such mercy is to be received. On what barren and parched land must this flood of living water surge? What are the wounds that need this precious balm? What is the sense of abandonment that cries out for loving attention? What is the sense of estrangement that so thirsts for embrace and encounter?
The parable which I would now propose for your meditation is that of the merciful Father (cf. Lk 15:11-31). We find ourselves before the mystery of the Father. I think we should begin with the moment when the prodigal son stands in the middle of the pigsty, in that inferno of selfishness where, having done everything he wanted to do, now, instead of being free, he feels enslaved. He looks at the pigs as they eat their husks… and he envies them. He feels homesick. He longs for the fresh baked bread that the servants in his house, his father’s house, eat for breakfast. Homesickness…, nostalgia. Nostalgia is a powerful emotion. Like mercy, it expands the soul. It makes us think back to our first experience of goodness – the homeland from which we went forth – and it awakens in us the hope of returning there. Against this vast horizon of nostalgia, the young man – as the Gospel tells us – came to his senses and realized that he was miserable.
Without dwelling on that misery of his, let us move on to the other moment, once his Father had embraced him and kissed him. He finds himself still dirty, yet dressed for a banquet. He fingers the ring he has been given, which is just like his father’s. He has new sandals on his feet. He is in the middle of a party, in the midst of a crowd of people. A bit like ourselves, if ever we have gone to confession before Mass and then all of a sudden found ourselves vested and in the middle of a ceremony.
An embarrassed dignity
Let us think for a moment about the “embarrassed dignity” of this prodigal yet beloved son. If we can serenely keep our heart balanced between those two extremes – dignity and embarrassment – without letting go of either of them, perhaps we can feel how the heart of our Father beats with love for us. We can imagine that mercy wells up in it like blood. He goes out to seek us sinners. He draws us to himself, purifies us and sends us forth, new and renewed, to every periphery, to bring mercy to all. That blood is the blood of Christ, the blood of the new and eternal covenant of mercy, poured out for us and for all, for the forgiveness of sins. We contemplate that blood by going in and out of his heart and the heart of the Father. That is our sole treasure, the only thing we have to give to the world: the blood that purifies and brings peace to every reality and all people. The blood of the Lord that forgives sins. The blood that is true drink, for it reawakens and revives what was dead from sin.
In our serene prayer, which wavers between embarrassment and dignity, dignity and embarrassment, let us ask for the grace to sense that mercy as giving meaning to our entire life, the grace to feel how the heart of the Father beats as one with our own. It is not enough to think of that grace as something God offers us from time to time, whenever he forgives some big sin of ours, so that then we can go off to do the rest by ourselves, alone.
Saint Ignatius offers us an image drawn from the courtly culture of his time, but since loyalty among friends is a perennial value, it can also help us. He says that, in order to feel “embarrassment and shame” for our sins (but without forgetting God’s mercy), we can use the example of “a knight who finds himself before his king and his entire court, ashamed and embarrassed for having gravely wronged him, after having received from him many gifts and many favours” (Spiritual Exercises, 74). But like the prodigal son who finds himself in the middle of a banquet, this knight, who ought to feel ashamed before everyone, suddenly sees the King take him by the hand and restore his dignity. Indeed, not only does the King ask him to follow him into battle, but he puts him at the head of his peers. With what humility and loyalty this knight will serve him henceforth!
Whether we see ourselves as the prodigal son in the midst of the banquet, or the disloyal knight restored and promoted, the important thing is that each of us feel that fruitful tension born of the Lord’s mercy: we are at one and the same time sinners pardoned and sinners restored to dignity.
Simon Peter represents the ministerial aspect of this healthy tension. At every step along the way, the Lord trains him to be both Simon and Peter. Simon, the ordinary man with all his faults and inconsistencies, and Peter, the bearer of the keys who leads the others. When Andrew brings Simon, fresh from his nets, to Christ, the Lord gives him the name Peter, “Rock”. Yet immediately after praising Peter’s confession of faith, which comes from the Father, Jesus sternly reproves him for being tempted to heed the evil spirit telling him to flee the cross. Jesus will go on to invite Peter to walk on the water; he will let him sink into his own fear, only then to stretch out his hand and raise him up. No sooner does Peter confess that he is a sinner than the Lord makes him a fisher of men. He will question Peter at length about his love, instilling in him sorrow and shame for his disloyalty and cowardice, but he will also thrice entrust to him the care of his sheep.
That is how we have to see ourselves: poised between our utter shame and our sublime dignity. Dirty, impure, mean and selfish, yet at the same time, with feet washed, called and chosen to distribute the Lord’s multiplied loaves, blessed by our people, loved and cared for. Only mercy makes this situation bearable. Without it, either we believe in our own righteousness like the Pharisees, or we shrink back like those who feel unworthy. In either case, our hearts grow hardened.
Let us look a little more closely at this, and ask why this tension is so fruitful. The reason, I would say, is that it is the result of a free decision. The Lord acts mainly through our freedom, even though his help never fails us. Mercy is a matter of freedom. As a feeling, it wells up spontaneously. When we say that it is visceral, it might seem that it is synonymous with “animal”. But animals do not experience “moral” mercy, even though some of them may experience something akin to compassion, like the faithful dog keeping watch at the side of his ailing master. Mercy is a visceral emotion but it can also be the fruit of an acute intellectual insight – startling as a bolt of lightning but no less complex for its simplicity. We intuit many things when we feel mercy. We understand, for example that another person is in a desperate state, a limit situation; something is going on that is greater than his or her sins and failings. We also realize that the other person is our peer, that we could well be standing in his or her shoes. Or that evil is such an immense and devastating thing that it can’t simply be fixed by justice… Deep down, we realize that what is needed is an infinite mercy, like that of the heart of Christ, to remedy all the evil and suffering we see in the lives of human beings… Anything less than this is not enough. We can understand so many things simply by seeing someone barefoot in the street on a cold morning, or by contemplating the Lord nailed to the cross – for me!
Moreover, mercy can be freely accepted and nurtured, or freely rejected. If we accept it, one thing leads to another. If we choose to ignore it, our heart grows cold. Mercy makes us experience our freedom and, as a result, the freedom of God himself, who, as he said to Moses, is “merciful with whom he is merciful” (cf. Dt 5:10). By his mercy the Lord expresses his freedom. And we, our own.
We can “do without” the Lord’s mercy for a long time. In other words, we can go through life without thinking about it consciously or explicitly asking for it. Then one day we realize that “all is mercy” and we weep bitterly for not having known it earlier, when we needed it most!
This feeling is a kind of moral misery. It is the entirely personal realization that at a certain point in my life I decided to go it alone: I made my choice and I chose badly. Such are the depths we have to reach in order to feel sorrow for our sins and true repentance. Otherwise, we lack the freedom to see that sin affects our entire life. We don’t recognize our misery, and thus we miss out on mercy, which only acts on that condition. People don’t go to a pharmacy and ask for an aspirin out of mercy. Out of mercy we ask for morphine, to administer to a person who is terminally ill and racked with pain.
The heart that God joins to this moral misery of ours is the heart of Christ, his beloved Son, which beats as one with that of the Father and the Spirit. It is a heart that chooses the fastest route and takes it. Mercy gets its hands dirty. It touches, it gets involved, it gets caught up with others, it gets personal. It does not approach “cases” but persons and their pain. Mercy exceeds justice; it brings knowledge and compassion; it leads to involvement. By the dignity it brings, mercy raises up the one over whom another has stooped to bring help. The one who shows mercy and the one to whom mercy is shown become equals.
That is why the Father needed to celebrate, so that everything could be restored at once, and his son could regain his lost dignity. This realization makes it possible to look to the future in a different way. It is not that mercy overlooks the objective harm brought about by evil. Rather, it takes away evil’s power over the future. It takes away its power over life, which then goes on. Mercy is the genuine expression of life that counters death, the bitter fruit of sin. As such, it is completely lucid and in no way naïve. It is not that it is blind to evil; rather, it sees how short life is and all the good still to be done. That is why it is so important to forgive completely, so that others can look to the future without wasting time on self-recrimination and self-pity over their past mistakes. In starting to care for others, we will examine our own consciences, and to the extent that we help others, we will make reparation for the wrong we ourselves have done. Mercy is always tinged with hope.
To let ourselves to be drawn to and sent by the beating heart of the Father is to remain in this healthy tension of embarrassed dignity. Letting ourselves be drawn into his heart, like blood which has been sullied on its way to give life to the extremities, so that the Lord can purify us and wash our feet. Letting ourselves be sent, full of the oxygen of the Spirit, to revive the whole body, especially those members who are most distant, frail and hurting.
A priest once told me about a street person who ended up living in a hospice. He was consumed by bitterness and did not interact with others. He was an educated person, as they later found out. Sometime thereafter, this man was hospitalized for a terminal illness. He told the priest that while he was there, feeling empty and disillusioned, the man in the next bed asked him to remove his bed pan and empty it. That request from someone truly in need, someone worse off than he was, opened his eyes and his heart to a powerful sense of humanity, a desire to help another person and to let himself be helped by God. A simple act of mercy put him in touch with infinite mercy. It led him to help someone else and, in doing so, to be helped himself. He died after making a good confession, and at peace.
So I leave you with the parable of the merciful Father, now that we have we have entered into the situation of the son who feels dirty and dressed up, a dignified sinner, ashamed of himself yet proud of his father. The sign that we have entered into it is that we ourselves now desire be merciful to all. This is the fire Jesus came to bring to the earth, a fire that lights other fires. If the spark does not take, it is because one of the poles cannot make contact. Either excessive shame, which fails to strip the wires and, instead of freely confessing “I did this or that”, stays covered; or excessive dignity, which touches things with gloves.
An excess of mercy
The only way for us to be “excessive” in responding to God’s excessive mercy is to be completely open to receiving it and to sharing it with others. The Gospel gives us many touching examples of people who went to excess in order to receive his mercy. There is the paralytic whose friends let him down from the roof into the place where the Lord was preaching. Or the leper who left his nine companions to come back, glorifying and thanking God in a loud voice, to kneel at the Lord’s feet. Or the blind Bartimaeus whose outcry made Jesus halt before him. Or the woman suffering from a hemorrhage who timidly approached the Lord and touched his robe; as the Gospel tells us, Jesus felt power –dynamis – “go forth” from him… All these are examples of that contact that lights a fire and unleashes the positive force of mercy. Then too, we can think of the sinful woman, who washed the Lord’s feet with her tears and dried them with her hair; Jesus saw her excessive display of love as a sign of her having received great mercy. Ordinary people – sinners, the infirm and those possessed by demons – are immediately raised up by the Lord. He makes them pass from exclusion to full inclusion, from estrangement to embrace. That is the expression: mercy makes us pass “from estrangement to celebration”. And it can only be understood in the key of hope, in an apostolic key, in the key of knowing mercy and then showing mercy.
Let us conclude by praying the Magnificat of mercy, Psalm 50 by King David, which we pray each Friday at Morning Prayer. It is the Magnificatof “a humble and contrite heart” capable of confessing its sin before the God who, in his fidelity, is greater than any of our sins. If we put ourselves in the place of the prodigal son, at the moment when, expecting his Father’s reproof, he discovers instead that his Father has thrown a party, we can imagine him praying Psalm 50. We can pray it antiphonally with him. We can hear him saying: “Have mercy on me, O God, in your kindness; in your compassion blot out my offence” … And ourselves continuing: “My offences, truly I (too) know them; my sin is always before me”. And together: “Against you, Father, against you, you alone, have I sinned”.
May our prayer rise up from that interior tension which kindles mercy, that tension between the shame that says: “From my sins turn away your face, and blot out all my guilt”, and the confidence that says, “O purify me, then I shall be clean; O wash me, I shall be whiter than snow”. A confidence that becomes apostolic: “Give me again the joy of your help; with the spirit of fervour sustain me, that I may teach transgressors your ways, and sinners may return to you”.[Original Text: Italian] [Vatican-provided translation]
Innovative Media Inc.
30 Mansell Road, Suite 103
Roswell, Georgia 30076, United States
---------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment