Soon after wishing us a good evening on the evening of March 13th, 2013 from the Loggia of Saint Peter Basilica, Pope Francis made a statement that immediately caught my attention and I used in my Sunday homily. During the first days of his pontificate, he publically repeated this phrase, “God never tires of forgiving, but at times we get tired of asking for forgiveness.” In his first Angelus address four days after his election, he stated that “God’s face is the face of a merciful father who is always patient.” These initial words of his ministry as successor of Peter now stand as foreshadowing statements of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy which he established in the Bull of Indiction Misericordiae Vultus earlier this year. The purpose of this Jubilee is that we as believers focus with greater attention on God’s mercy in order to become stronger and more effective witnesses of God’s mercy.
The Jubilee Year already began on December 8th and will conclude on November 20th, 2016. Pope Francis has encouraged the whole church to live this year in light of the words of Jesus himself, “be merciful just as your Father is merciful.” The challenge to every Christian is to become a vessel of mercy toward others, in other words, to show mercy in the same way he or she has been shown mercy by the Father. The motto of this Year of Mercy reminds us of a foundational principle of the Christian life, “Merciful like the Father.”
Francis believes that in order to effectively evangelize, the theme of mercy must be proposed with enthusiasm and pastoral action. “It is absolutely essential for the Church and for the credibility of her message that she herself live and testify to mercy (Misericordiae Vultus, 12).” The language and gestures of the Church must transmit mercy so that people’s hearts may be moved and be led to God. Jesus witnessed to the mercy of God by teaching, healing and forgiving, and he charged us to do the same. Pope Francis has caught the world’s attention simply because he follows the example of Our Lord. The merciful words and gestures of Pope Francis are fruit of his personal desire to imitate the merciful words and gestures of Jesus Christ. We can strive to imitate Pope Francis because in doing so, we are, along with him, striving to imitate Jesus.
Pope Francis reminds us that God’s mercy is not abstract, but that it calls us to concrete action. He calls us to reawaken our consciences and to practice works of mercy, especially towards the poor and those in the fringes of society.
This Year of Mercy is an opportunity to rejoice and to share the mercy God the Father has shown us. In doing so, we as a Church will proclaim God’s mercy to the world, making the message of the Gospel authentic and credible. God’s mercy is inexhaustible, and this Year of Mercy is an opportunity for the whole Church to invoke it and receive it without ever tiring of doing so.
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