Oboedire
"Year of Mercy: Surprise!" by J. Steven Harper for Wednesday, 22 June 2016(25)The Pope draws his writing to a close with a call for us to open ourselves to the God who surprises us. The God who never tires of showering us with mercy, has ways and means for doing this that we cannot ask or imagine.
But the crucial factors are that we not try to define or control what those surprises are, or who will receive them--and--that we offer ourselves as instruments through whom those surprises can flow out to others. In many respects, the Pope is saying what others have said, "Without God, we cannot; without us, God will not." The Pope is echoing the prayer of the one whose name he took for his pontificate: "Lord, make me an instrument of your peace."
The manifestation of this mercy, as the Pope notes, begins in the deep contemplation of Christ, the incarnation of mercy. And then, as a result of that contemplation, we accept Christ's commission to be missionaries of mercy in our homes, neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and houses of worship.
This is no easy task, and it is made even more difficult by our cultural predispositions toward all sorts of hardness of heart, complete with the legalisms that justify our withholding mercy to any whom we deem as failing to be "worthy" of it. But this is not the way of God. And so, Pope Francis ends his writing praying that (despite the odds and the temptations to quit) we will never tire in showing mercy to one and to all.
Yes, Lord--may it be so!
[Note: the numbers at the beginning of each meditation correspond to the section of the Pope's document on which it is based][J. Steven Harper]
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Categories: Gatherings
URL: http://wp.me/p101na-1EN
-------25. I present, therefore, this Extraordinary Jubilee Year dedicated to living out in our daily lives the mercy which the Father constantly extends to all of us. In this Jubilee Year, let us allow God to surprise us. He never tires of casting open the doors of his heart and of repeating that he loves us and wants to share his love with us. The Church feels the urgent need to proclaim God’s mercy. Her life is authentic and credible only when she becomes a convincing herald of mercy. She knows that her primary task, especially at a moment full of great hopes and signs of contradiction, is to introduce everyone to the great mystery of God’s mercy by contemplating the face of Christ. The Church is called above all to be a credible witness to mercy, professing it and living it as the core of the revelation of Jesus Christ. From the heart of the Trinity, from the depths of the mystery of God, the great river of mercy wells up and overflows unceasingly. It is a spring that will never run dry, no matter how many people draw from it. Every time someone is in need, he or she can approach it, because the mercy of God never ends. The profundity of the mystery surrounding it is as inexhaustible as the richness which springs up from it.
In this Jubilee Year, may the Church echo the word of God that resounds strong and clear as a message and a sign of pardon, strength, aid, and love. May she never tire of extending mercy, and be ever patient in offering compassion and comfort. May the Church become the voice of every man and woman, and repeat confidently without end: “Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old” (Ps 25:6).
Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on 11 April, the Vigil of the Second Sunday of Easter, or the Sunday of Divine Mercy, in the year of our Lord 2015, the third of my Pontificate.
FRANCISCUS[1] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, 4.
[2] Opening Address of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Gaudet Mater Ecclesia, 11 October 1962, 2-3.
[3] Speech at the Final Public Session of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, 7 December 1965.
[4] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 16: Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 15.
[5] Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 30. a. 4.
[6] XXVI Sunday in Ordinary Time. This Collect already appears in the eighth century among the euchological texts of the Gelasian Sacramentary (1198).
[7] Cf. Homily 22: CCL, 122, 149-151.
[8] Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 24.
[9] No. 2.
[10] Saint John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Dives in Misericordia, 15.
[11] Ibid., 13.
[12] Words of Light and Love, 57.
[13] Homilies on the Psalms, 76, 11.
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-------25. I present, therefore, this Extraordinary Jubilee Year dedicated to living out in our daily lives the mercy which the Father constantly extends to all of us. In this Jubilee Year, let us allow God to surprise us. He never tires of casting open the doors of his heart and of repeating that he loves us and wants to share his love with us. The Church feels the urgent need to proclaim God’s mercy. Her life is authentic and credible only when she becomes a convincing herald of mercy. She knows that her primary task, especially at a moment full of great hopes and signs of contradiction, is to introduce everyone to the great mystery of God’s mercy by contemplating the face of Christ. The Church is called above all to be a credible witness to mercy, professing it and living it as the core of the revelation of Jesus Christ. From the heart of the Trinity, from the depths of the mystery of God, the great river of mercy wells up and overflows unceasingly. It is a spring that will never run dry, no matter how many people draw from it. Every time someone is in need, he or she can approach it, because the mercy of God never ends. The profundity of the mystery surrounding it is as inexhaustible as the richness which springs up from it.
In this Jubilee Year, may the Church echo the word of God that resounds strong and clear as a message and a sign of pardon, strength, aid, and love. May she never tire of extending mercy, and be ever patient in offering compassion and comfort. May the Church become the voice of every man and woman, and repeat confidently without end: “Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old” (Ps 25:6).
Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on 11 April, the Vigil of the Second Sunday of Easter, or the Sunday of Divine Mercy, in the year of our Lord 2015, the third of my Pontificate.
FRANCISCUS[1] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation Dei Verbum, 4.
[2] Opening Address of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Gaudet Mater Ecclesia, 11 October 1962, 2-3.
[3] Speech at the Final Public Session of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, 7 December 1965.
[4] Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 16: Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World Gaudium et Spes, 15.
[5] Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 30. a. 4.
[6] XXVI Sunday in Ordinary Time. This Collect already appears in the eighth century among the euchological texts of the Gelasian Sacramentary (1198).
[7] Cf. Homily 22: CCL, 122, 149-151.
[8] Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, 24.
[9] No. 2.
[10] Saint John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Dives in Misericordia, 15.
[11] Ibid., 13.
[12] Words of Light and Love, 57.
[13] Homilies on the Psalms, 76, 11.
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