FR
EN
Misericordiae Vultus
BULL OF INDICTION
OF THE EXTRAORDINARY JUBILEE
OF MERCY
FRANCIS
BISHOP OF ROME
SERVANT OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD
TO ALL WHO READ THIS LETTER
GRACE, MERCY AND PEACE
1. Jesus Christ is the face of the Father's mercy. The mystery of the Christian faith is contained wholly in this. Having become living and visible, it reaches its summit in Jesus of Nazareth. The Father, « rich in mercy » (Eph 2:4), after having revealed his name to Moses as « a God tender and merciful, slow to anger, full of love and truth » (Ex 34:6), has not ceased to make known his divine nature in different ways and at many moments. When the « fullness of time » came (Gal 4:4), when everything was disposed according to his plan of salvation, he sent his Son, born of the Virgin Mary, to reveal to us definitively his love. Whoever sees him has seen the Father (cf. Jn 14:9). Through his word, his gestures, and his whole person,[1] Jesus of Nazareth reveals the mercy of God.
2. We always need to contemplate the mystery of mercy. It is a source of joy, of serenity and of peace. It is the condition of our salvation. Mercy is the word that reveals the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Mercy is the ultimate and supreme act by which God comes to meet us. Mercy is the fundamental law that dwells in the heart of every person when he casts a sincere glance on the brother he meets on the path of life. Mercy is the path that unites God and man, so that he may open his heart to the hope of being loved for ever despite the limits of our sin.
3. There are moments when we are called in an even more pressing way to fix our gaze on mercy, so that we too may become an effective sign of the Father's action. It is for this reason that I have willed this Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy,as a favourable time for the Church, so that the witness borne by believers may be stronger and more effective.
The Holy Year will open on 8 December 2015, the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. This liturgical feast shows how God acts from the very beginning of our history. After Adam and Eve had sinned, God did not want humanity to remain alone and prey to evil. That is why Mary was thought of and willed holy and immaculate in love (cf. Eph 1:4), so that she might become the Mother of the Redeemer of man. In the face of the gravity of sin, God responds with the fullness of forgiveness. Mercy will always be greater than sin, and no one can impose a limit on the love of God who forgives. On this feast of the Immaculate Conception, I will have the joy of opening the Holy Door. On this occasion, it will be a Door of Mercy, where whoever enters will be able to experience the love of God who consoles, forgives, and gives hope.
On the following Sunday, the third of Advent, the Holy Door will be opened in the cathedral of Rome, the Basilica of Saint John Lateran. Then the Holy Doors will be opened in the other papal Basilicas. On this same Sunday, I desire that in each particular Church, in the cathedral which is the mother Church for all the faithful, or else in the co-cathedral or in a church of particular importance, a Door of Mercy also be opened throughout the Holy Year. At the choice of the local Ordinary, it may also be opened in the Shrines to which so many pilgrims flock who, in these places, have their hearts touched by grace and find the path of conversion. Each particular Church is therefore directly invited to live this Holy Year as an extraordinary moment of grace and spiritual renewal. Thus, the Jubilee will be celebrated in Rome, as well as in the particular Churches, as a visible sign of the communion of the whole Church.
4. I have chosen the date of 8 December for the significance it holds in the recent history of the Church. Thus, I will open the Holy Door on the fiftieth anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. The Church feels the need to keep this event alive. It was for her that a new stage of her history was then beginning. The Fathers of the Council had perceived vividly, like a breath of the Spirit, the need to speak of God to the people of their time in a more understandable way. The walls which had for too long enclosed the Church as if in a citadel having been torn down, the time had come to proclaim the Gospel in a renewed way. A new stage for the evangelisation of all times. A new commitment of all Christians to bear witness to their faith with more enthusiasm and conviction. The Church felt responsible for being in the world the living sign of the Father's love.
The words rich in meaning that Saint John XXIII pronounced at the opening of the Council to show the path to be travelled come to mind: « Today, the Bride of Christ, the Church, prefers to make use of the remedy of mercy rather than to brandish the weapons of severity … The Catholic Church, in brandishing the torch of religious truth, wishes to show herself the most loving mother of all, benevolent, patient, full of indulgence and goodness towards her separated children ».[2] In the same perspective, at the conclusion of the Council, Blessed Paul VI expressed himself thus: « We wish rather to point out that the rule of our Council was above all charity … The old story of the good Samaritan was the model and the rule of the spirituality of the Council…. A current of affection and admiration overflowed from the Council upon the modern human world. Errors were denounced. Yes, because that is the requirement of charity as of truth; but, towards persons, there was only reminder, respect and love. Instead of depressing diagnoses, encouraging remedies; instead of dire forebodings, messages of trust went out from the Council to the contemporary world: its values were not only respected, but honoured; its efforts sustained, its aspirations purified and blessed… all this doctrinal richness is aimed at one thing only: to serve man. It is a matter, of course, of every man, whatever his condition, his misery and his needs ».[3]
Animated by feelings of gratitude for all that the Church has received, and aware of the responsibility that is ours, we will pass through the Holy Door confident that we are accompanied by the strength of the Risen Lord who continues to sustain our pilgrimage. May the Holy Spirit who guides the steps of believers to cooperate in the work of salvation brought by Christ, lead and sustain the People of God to help them contemplate the face of mercy.[4]
5. It is on 20 November 2016, on the liturgical solemnity of Christ, King of the Universe, that the jubilee year will be concluded. In closing the Holy Door on that day, we will be animated by feelings of gratitude and thanksgiving towards the Holy Trinity who will have granted us to live this extraordinary time of grace. We will entrust the life of the Church, the whole of humanity and the entire cosmos to the Lordship of Christ, so that he may pour out his mercy like the morning dew, for a fruitful history to be built through the commitment of all in the service of our near future. How I desire that the coming years be as it were imbued with mercy, so as to go out to meet each person, offering them the goodness and tenderness of God! May the balm of mercy reach everyone, believers and those far from the faith, as a sign of the Kingdom of God already present in our midst.
6. « Mercy is proper to God, whose omnipotence consists precisely in showing mercy ».[5] These words of Saint Thomas Aquinas show that mercy is not a sign of weakness, but indeed the expression of the omnipotence of God. That is why one of the most ancient collects of the liturgy has us pray thus: « O God, who reveal your power above all by pardoning and showing mercy ».[6] God will always be, in the history of humanity, as the one who is present, close, provident, holy and merciful.
“Patient and merciful”: such is the pairing that runs through the Old Testament to express the nature of God. His mercy is manifested concretely within so many events of the history of salvation where his goodness prevails over punishment or destruction. In a particular way, the Psalms bring out this grandeur of the divine action: « For he pardons all your offences and heals you of every illness; he claims your life from the grave and crowns you with love and tenderness » (Ps 103:3-4). In an even more explicit way, another Psalm sets out the concrete signs of mercy: « He does justice to the oppressed; to the hungry he gives bread; the Lord sets the chained free. The Lord opens the eyes of the blind, the Lord raises up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the just, the Lord protects the stranger. He upholds the widow and the orphan, he thwarts the steps of the wicked » (146:7-9). Here, finally, is another expression of the psalmist: « [The Lord] heals the broken-hearted and tends their wounds… The Lord raises up the lowly and casts the wicked down to the ground » (147:3, 6). In short, God's mercy is not an abstract idea, but a concrete reality through which He reveals his love like that of a father and a mother moved to their very depths by their child. It is right to speak of a « visceral » love. It comes from the heart like a deep, natural feeling, made of tenderness and compassion, of indulgence and forgiveness.
7. « Eternal is his love »: this is the refrain that returns at every verse of Psalm 136 in the account of the history of the revelation of God. By reason of mercy, all the events of the Old Testament are rich in a great salvific value. Mercy makes of the history of God with Israel a history of salvation. To repeat unceasingly: « Eternal is his love » as the Psalm does, seems to want to break the circle of space and time in order to inscribe everything in the eternal mystery of love. It is as if one wished to say that not only in history, but also in eternity, man will always be under the merciful gaze of the Father. It is not by chance that the people of Israel wished to integrate this Psalm, the “great hallel” as it is called, into the most important liturgical feasts.
Before the Passion, Jesus prayed with this Psalm of mercy. This is attested by the evangelist Matthew when he says that « after having sung the Psalms » (26:30), Jesus and his disciples went out towards the Mount of Olives. When he instituted the Eucharist, an everlasting memorial of his Passover, he symbolically established this supreme act of Revelation in the light of mercy. On this same horizon of mercy, Jesus lived his passion and his death, aware of the great mystery of love that was being accomplished on the cross. To know that Jesus himself prayed with this Psalm makes it even more important for us Christians, and calls us to make it the refrain of our daily prayer of praise: « Eternal is his love ».
8. With our gaze fixed on Jesus and his merciful face, we can welcome the love of the Holy Trinity. The mission that Jesus received from the Father was to reveal the mystery of divine love in its fullness. The evangelist John affirms, for the first and only time in all of Scripture: « God is love » (1 Jn 4:8, 16). This love is henceforth made visible and tangible in the whole life of Jesus. His person is nothing other than love, a love that gives itself freely. His relationships with the persons who approach him have something unique and singular about them. The signs that he accomplishes, above all towards sinners, the poor, the excluded, the sick and the suffering, are marked by mercy. Everything in Him speaks of mercy. Nothing in Him lacks compassion.
In the face of the multitude that followed him, Jesus, seeing that they were tired and exhausted, lost and without a shepherd, felt in the depths of his heart a great compassion for them (cf. Mt 9:36). By reason of this love of compassion, he healed the sick who were presented to him (cf. Mt 14:14), and he fed a great crowd with a few loaves and fish (cf. Mt 15:37). What animated Jesus in every circumstance was nothing other than the mercy with which he read the hearts of those he spoke to and responded to their deepest needs. When he met the widow of Nain who was taking her only son to the tomb, he felt a deep compassion for the immense sorrow of that weeping mother, and he gave her back her son, raising him from death (cf. Lk 7:15). After having freed the possessed man of Gerasa, he gave him this mission: « Proclaim all that the Lord has done for you in his mercy » (Mk 5:19). The call of Matthew too is inscribed on the horizon of mercy. Passing before the tax booth, Jesus looked Matthew in the eyes. It was a gaze rich in mercy that forgave the sins of that man, and, overcoming the resistances of the other disciples, he chose him, the sinner and the tax collector, to become one of the Twelve. Commenting on this scene of the Gospel, Saint Bede the Venerable wrote that Jesus looked upon Matthew with a merciful love, and chose him: miserando atque eligendo.[7] This expression has always made an impression on me, to the point of making it my motto.
9. In the parables of mercy, Jesus reveals the nature of God as that of a Father who never admits defeat until he has absolved sin and overcome refusal, by compassion and mercy. We know these parables, three in particular: that of the lost sheep, that of the lost coin, and that of the father and the two sons (cf. Lk 15:1-32). In these parables, God is always presented as filled with joy, above all when he forgives. In them we find the core of the Gospel and of our faith, for mercy is presented in them as the force victorious over all, which fills the heart with love, and which consoles by forgiving.
In another parable, we receive a teaching for our manner of living as Christians. Challenged by Peter's question asking how many times one had to forgive, Jesus answered: « I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven times » (Mt 18:22). He then recounts the parable of the « merciless debtor ». Called by his master to render a large sum, he begs him on his knees and the master remits his debt. Immediately after, he meets another servant who owed him a few cents. This one begged him on his knees to have pity, but he refused and had him imprisoned. Having learned of the matter, the master grew angry and called back the servant to tell him: « Should you not, in your turn, have had pity on your companion, as I myself had pity on you? » (Mt 18:33). And Jesus concludes: « So will my heavenly Father treat you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from the bottom of his heart » (Mt 18:35).
The parable is of great teaching for each of us. Jesus affirms that mercy is not only the action of the Father, but it becomes the criterion for understanding who are his true children. In sum, we are invited to live by mercy because mercy was first shown to us. The forgiveness of offences becomes the most manifest expression of merciful love, and for us Christians it is an imperative from which we cannot exempt ourselves. Very often, it seems difficult to us to forgive! Yet forgiveness is the means placed in our fragile hands to attain peace of heart. To rid ourselves of resentment, of anger, of violence and of vengeance is the necessary condition for living happily. Let us therefore welcome the exhortation of the apostle: « Let not the sun set on your anger » (Eph 4:26). Let us listen above all to the word of Jesus who established mercy as an ideal of life, and as a criterion of the credibility of our faith: « Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy » (Mt 5:7). This is the beatitude that must arouse our very special commitment in this Holy Year.
As can be noticed, mercy is, in Scripture, the key word to indicate God's action towards us. His love is not only affirmed, but it is made visible and tangible. Moreover, love can never be an abstract word. By nature, it is concrete life: intentions, attitudes, behaviours that are verified in daily action. God's mercy is his responsibility towards us. He feels responsible, that is to say, he wills our good and wishes to see us happy, filled with joy and peace. The merciful love of Christians must be on the same wavelength. As the Father loves, so the children love. As he is merciful, so are we called to be merciful to one another.
10. Mercy is the pillar that sustains the life of the Church. In her pastoral action, everything should be enveloped in the tenderness with which one addresses believers. In her proclamation and the witness she gives before the world, nothing can be deprived of mercy. The credibility of the Church passes by way of the path of merciful love and compassion. The Church « lives an inexhaustible desire to offer mercy ».[8] Perhaps we have sometimes forgotten to show and to live the path of mercy. On the one hand, the temptation to demand always and only justice has made us forget that it is but a first step, necessary and indispensable, but the Church must go beyond it to reach a higher and more significant goal. On the other hand, it is sad to see how the experience of forgiveness is ever rarer in our culture. Even the word seems at times to disappear. Without the witness of forgiveness, there is only a barren and sterile life, as if one lived in a desert. The time has come for the Church to rediscover the joyful proclamation of forgiveness. It is time to return to the essential in order to take upon ourselves the weaknesses and difficulties of our brothers. Forgiveness is a force that raises up to new life and gives the courage to look to the future with hope.
11. We cannot forget the great teaching that Saint John Paul II gave us in his second encyclical Dives in misericordia, which arrived at the time unexpectedly and caused much surprise because of the theme addressed. I would like to return more particularly to two expressions. First of all, the holy Pope notes the forgetting of the theme of mercy in the present culture: « The contemporary mentality seems to oppose the God of mercy, and it tends to eliminate from life and to remove from the human heart the very notion of mercy. The word and the idea of mercy seem to make uneasy man who, thanks to a scientific and technical development unknown until now, has become master of the earth which he has subdued and dominated (cf. Gen 1:28). This domination of the earth, understood at times in a unilateral and superficial way, leaves no room, it seems, for mercy… And that is why, in the present situation of the Church and of the world, many people and many milieus, guided by a keen sense of faith, turn, I would say almost spontaneously, to the mercy of God ».[9]
It is thus that Saint John Paul II justified the urgency of the proclamation and the witness in regard to mercy in the contemporary world: « It is dictated by love for man, for all that is human, and which, according to the intuition of a great part of the people of this time, is threatened by an immense peril. The mystery of Christ … impelled me to recall in the encyclicalRedemptor Hominis his incomparable dignity, and obliges me also to proclaim mercy as the merciful love of God revealed in that mystery. It also leads me to appeal to that mercy and to implore it in this difficult and critical phase of the history of the Church and of the world ».[10] His teaching remains more than ever relevant and deserves to be taken up again in this Holy Year. Let us receive his words anew: « The Church lives an authentic life when she professes and proclaims Mercy, the most admirable attribute of the Creator and of the Redeemer, and when she leads people to the sources of the Saviour's Mercy, of which she is the depositary and the dispenser ».[11]
12. The Church has the mission of proclaiming the mercy of God, the beating heart of the Gospel, which she must cause to reach the heart and the mind of all. The Bride of Christ adopts the attitude of the Son of God who goes out to meet everyone, excluding no one. In our days, when the Church is engaged in the new evangelisation, the theme of mercy must be proposed with new enthusiasm and through a renewed pastoral care. It is decisive for the Church and for the credibility of her proclamation that she herself live and bear witness to mercy. Her language and her gestures must transmit mercy in order to penetrate the hearts of persons and to move them to find again the path of return to the Father.
The first truth of the Church is the love of Christ. The Church makes herself the servant and mediator of this love which goes as far as forgiveness and the gift of self. Consequently, wherever the Church is present, the mercy of the Father must be manifest. In our parishes, the communities, the associations and the movements, in short, wherever there are Christians, anyone must be able to find an oasis of mercy.
13. We wish to live this Jubilee Year in the light of the word of the Lord: Merciful like the Father. The evangelist reports the teaching of Christ who says: « Be merciful as your Father is merciful » (Lk 6:36). It is a programme of life as demanding as it is rich in joy and peace. The commandment of Jesus is addressed to those who listen to his voice
(cf. Lk 6:27). To be capable of mercy, we must therefore first set ourselves to listening to the Word of God. This means that we must rediscover the value of silence in order to meditate on the Word that is addressed to us. It is thus that it is possible to contemplate the mercy of God and to make it our style of life.
14. The pilgrimage is a particular sign of the Holy Year: it is the image of the path that each person travels throughout his existence. Life is a pilgrimage, and the human being a viator, a pilgrim who travels a path to the desired goal. To pass through the Holy Door in Rome, and in every place, each person will have to make a pilgrimage, according to his strength. It will be the sign that mercy is a goal to be attained, which demands commitment and sacrifice. May the pilgrimage stimulate our conversion: in passing through the Holy Door, we will let ourselves be embraced by the mercy of God, and we will commit ourselves to being merciful with others as the Father is with us.
The Lord Jesus shows us the stages of the pilgrimage through which we can attain this goal: « Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you: a good measure, pressed down, shaken, running over, will be poured into the fold of your garment; for the measure you use for others will serve as a measure for you too » (Lk 6:37-38). We are told, first, not to judge, and not to condemn. If one does not want to be exposed to the judgment of God, no one must become the judge of his brother. Indeed, in judging, people stop at what is superficial, whereas the Father looks at hearts. How much harm words do when they are animated by feelings of jealousy or envy! To speak ill of one's brother in his absence is to cast him in a false light, to compromise his reputation and abandon him to gossip. Not to judge and not to condemn means, in a positive way, knowing how to welcome what is good in every person and not permitting that person to have to suffer from our partial judgment and our pretension to know everything. This is still not sufficient to express what mercy is. Jesus also asks us to forgive and to give, to be instruments of forgiveness since we have already received it from God, to be generous towards all, knowing that God also extends his goodness to us with great magnanimity.
Merciful like the Father, is therefore the “motto” of the Holy Year. In mercy, we have the proof of the way in which God loves. He gives himself entirely, for ever, freely, and without asking anything in return. He comes to our aid when we call upon him. It is beautiful that the daily prayer of the Church begins with these words: « O God, come to my rescue; Lord, come quickly to my aid » (Ps 70:2). The help we implore is already the first step of the mercy of God towards us. He comes to save us from the condition of weakness in which we live. His help consists in making his presence and his closeness accessible. Touched day after day by his compassion, we too can become compassionate towards all.
15. During this Holy Year, we will be able to experience opening our hearts to those who live in the most diverse existential peripheries, which the modern world has often created in a dramatic way. How many situations of precariousness and suffering exist in today's world! How many wounds are imprinted in the flesh of those who no longer have a voice because their cry has faded away and fallen silent because of the indifference of the rich peoples! During this Jubilee, the Church will be called even more to tend these wounds, to soothe them with the oil of consolation, to bind them with mercy and to tend them with solidarity and attention. Let us not fall into the indifference that humiliates, into the habit that anesthetises the soul and prevents us from discovering newness, into destructive cynicism. Let us open our eyes to see the miseries of the world, the wounds of so many brothers and sisters deprived of dignity, and let us feel ourselves called to hear their cry that calls for help. May our hands clasp their hands and draw them towards us so that they may feel the warmth of our presence, of friendship and of fraternity. May their cry become our own, and together may we break the barrier of indifference that often reigns as sovereign to hide hypocrisy and selfishness.
I have a great desire that the Christian people reflect during the Jubilee on the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. It will be a way of awakening our often slumbering conscience in the face of the drama of poverty, and of penetrating ever more the heart of the Gospel, where the poor are the privileged recipients of divine mercy. The preaching of Jesus draws for us the picture of these works of mercy, so that we can understand whether or not we live as his disciples. Let us rediscover the corporal works of mercy : to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to welcome strangers, to assist the sick, to visit prisoners, to bury the dead. And let us not forget the spiritual works of mercy: to counsel those who are in doubt, to teach the ignorant, to admonish sinners, to console the afflicted, to forgive offences, to bear patiently with troublesome persons, to pray to God for the living and for the dead.
We cannot escape the words of the Lord, and it is on them that we will be judged: will we have fed those who are hungry and given drink to those who are thirsty? Will we have welcomed the stranger and clothed the one who was naked? Will we have taken the time to remain beside the one who is sick and imprisoned? (cf. Mt 25:31-45). Likewise, we will be asked whether we have helped others to come out of the doubt that engenders fear, and very often solitude; whether we have been capable of overcoming the ignorance in which millions of people live, above all children deprived of the help necessary to be freed from poverty; whether we have made ourselves close to the one who is alone and afflicted; whether we have forgiven the one who offends us; whether we have rejected every form of resentment and hatred that leads to violence; whether we have been patient in the image of God who is so patient towards us; whether, finally, we have entrusted to the Lord, in prayer, our brothers and sisters. It is in each of these « least ones » that Christ is present. His flesh becomes visible again as a body tortured, wounded, scourged, hungry, lost… to be recognised by us, touched and assisted with care. Let us not forget the words of Saint John of the Cross: « At the evening of our life, we will be judged on love ».[12]
16. In the Gospel of Luke, we find another important aspect for living this Jubilee with faith. The evangelist recounts that on a sabbath day, Jesus returned to Nazareth, and as he was accustomed to do, he entered the synagogue. He was called to read the Scripture and to comment on it. It was the passage of the prophet Isaiah where it is written: « The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has consecrated me by anointing. He has sent me to announce the good news to the lowly, to heal those whose heart is broken, to proclaim to captives their deliverance, to prisoners their liberation, to proclaim a year of favours granted by the Lord » (Is 61:1-2). « A year of favours »: this is what the Lord proclaims and what we wish to live. May this Holy Year lay bare the richness of the mission of Jesus which resounds in the words of the Prophet: to speak a word and make a gesture of consolation towards the poor, to proclaim liberation to those who are slaves in the new prisons of modern society, to give back sight to those who are no longer capable of seeing because curled in upon themselves, to give back dignity to those who are deprived of it. May the preaching of Jesus be visible again in the responses of faith that Christians are led to give by their witness. May the words of the Apostle accompany us: « whoever practises mercy, let him do it with a smile » (Rom 12:8).
17. May the Lent of this Jubilee Year be lived more intensely as a strong time to celebrate and experience the mercy of God. How many pages of Scripture can be meditated during the weeks of Lent, in order to rediscover the merciful face of the Father! We too can repeat with Micah: You, Lord, are a God who blots out iniquity and forgives sin. Once again, you will show us your mercy, you will trample our crimes underfoot, you will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea! (cf. 7:18-19).
These pages of the prophet Isaiah can be meditated more concretely in this time of prayer, of fasting and of charity: « Is not this the fast that pleases me: to break unjust chains, to loosen the bonds of the yoke, to give freedom to the oppressed, to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the one who is hungry, to welcome into your home the poor without shelter, to cover the one whom you see without clothing, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will burst forth like the dawn, and your strength will quickly return. Before you will march your justice, and the glory of the Lord will close the march. Then, if you call, the Lord will answer; if you cry out, he will say: “Here I am.” If you make the yoke disappear from your midst, the accusing gesture, the malicious word, if you give to the one who is hungry what you yourself desire, and if you fulfil the desires of the unfortunate, your light will rise in the darkness and your obscurity will be like midday. The Lord will always be your guide. In the midst of the desert, he will fulfil your desires and restore your vigour. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring where the waters never fail » (Is 58:6-11).
The initiative called « 24 hours for the Lord » on the Friday and Saturday preceding the IVth Sunday of Lent must gain in strength in the dioceses. So many people have again drawn near to the sacrament of Reconciliation, and among them many young people, who thus find again the path to return to the Lord, to live a moment of intense prayer, and to rediscover the meaning of their life. With conviction, let us put back at the centre the sacrament of Reconciliation, since it allows us to touch with our hands the grandeur of mercy. For each penitent, it will be a source of a true interior peace.
I will never tire of insisting that confessors be a true sign of the mercy of the Father. One does not improvise as a confessor. One becomes one by first making oneself a penitent in search of forgiveness. Let us never forget that to be a confessor is to participate in the mission of Jesus to be a concrete sign of the continuity of a divine love that forgives and saves. Each of us has received the gift of the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins; we are responsible for it. None of us is master of the sacrament, but a faithful servant of God's forgiveness. Every confessor must welcome the faithful like the father of the parable of the prodigal son: a father who runs out to meet the son although he has squandered all his goods. The confessors are called to clasp to themselves this repentant son who returns home, and to express the joy of having found him again. Nor will they tire of going out to the other son who remained outside and incapable of rejoicing, to make him understand that his judgment is severe and unjust, and makes no sense in the face of the mercy of the Father which has no limit. They will not ask impertinent questions, but like the father of the parable, they will interrupt the discourse prepared by the prodigal son, because they will know how to welcome in the penitent's heart the call for help and the request for forgiveness. In sum, the confessors are called, always, everywhere and in all situations, to be the sign of the primacy of mercy.
18. During the Lent of this Holy Year, I intend to send out the Missionaries of Mercy. They will be the sign of the maternal solicitude of the Church towards the People of God, so that they may enter deeply into the richness of this mystery so fundamental for the faith. They will be priests to whom I will have given the authority to forgive even the sins that are reserved to the Apostolic See, in order to make explicit the extent of their mandate. They will be above all a living sign of the way in which the Father welcomes those who are in search of his forgiveness. They will be missionaries of mercy because they will make themselves, for all, the instrument of an encounter rich in humanity, a source of liberation, weighty with responsibility so as to overcome the obstacles to taking up again the new life of Baptism. In their mission, they will let themselves be guided by the word of the Apostle: « God, in fact, has shut up all men in the refusal to believe in order to show mercy to all » (Rom 11:32). Indeed, all, without exclusion, are invited to welcome the call to mercy. May the missionaries live this call by fixing their gaze on Jesus, « a merciful and faithful High Priest » (Heb 2:17).
I ask my brother bishops to invite and welcome these Missionaries, so that they may be above all convincing preachers of mercy. May « missions to the people » be organised in the dioceses, so that these Missionaries may be the heralds of the joy of forgiveness. May they celebrate the sacrament of Reconciliation for the people, so that the time of grace of the Jubilee Year may allow many distant sons to find again the path to the paternal home. May the pastors, especially during the strong time of Lent, be invited to call the faithful to draw near « to the Throne of grace, to obtain mercy and to receive the grace of his help » (Heb 4:16).
19. May the word of forgiveness reach everyone, and may the invitation to experience mercy leave no one indifferent! My appeal to conversion is addressed with more insistence to those who find themselves far from the grace of God because of their conduct of life. I think in particular of the men and women who are part of a criminal organisation, of whatever kind. For your own good, I ask you to change your life. I ask you in the name of the Son of God who, combating sin, never rejected any sinner. Do not fall into the terrible trap of believing that life depends only on money, and that, alongside it, everything else has neither value nor dignity. This is only an illusion. We do not take our money into the beyond. Money does not give true happiness. Violence to amass money that makes blood flow renders no one powerful, nor immortal. Sooner or later, the judgment of God will come, which no one will be able to escape.
The same appeal is addressed to persons guilty of or complicit in corruption. This stinking plague of society is a grave sin that cries out to heaven, for it undermines the very foundation of personal and social life. Corruption prevents us from looking to the future with hope, because its arrogance and its greed destroy the projects of the weak and drive away the poorest. It is an evil that takes root in daily gestures to spread as far as public scandals. Corruption is a relentless persistence in sin that intends to substitute for God the illusion of money as a form of power. It is a work of darkness, which relies on suspicion and intrigue. Corruptio optimi pessima, Saint Gregory the Great rightly said, to show that no one is exempt from this temptation. To overcome it in individual and social life, prudence is needed, vigilance, loyalty, transparency, all of it joined with the courage of denunciation. If it is not fought openly, sooner or later one becomes complicit in it and it destroys existence.
Now is the favourable moment to change one's life! Now is the time to let oneself be touched to the heart. In the face of evil committed, and even of grave crimes, now is the moment to listen to the weeping of the innocent stripped of their goods, of their dignity, of their affection, of their very life. To remain on the path of evil is only a source of illusion and sadness. True life is something quite different. God does not tire of holding out his hand. He is always ready to listen, and so am I, as are my brother bishops and priests. It suffices to welcome the call to conversion and to submit oneself to justice, while the Church offers mercy.
20. In this context, it is not useless to recall the relationship between justice and mercy. It is not a matter of two contradictory aspects, but of two dimensions of a single reality that develops progressively until it reaches its summit in the fullness of love. Justice is a fundamental concept for civil society, when the normal reference is the juridical order through which the law is applied. Justice wills that each receive what is due to him. Reference is made many times in the Bible to divine justice and to God as judge. By this is understood the integral observance of the Law and the behaviour of every good Israelite in conformity with the commandments of God. This vision has however often fallen into legalism, thus deforming the original meaning and obscuring the deep meaning of justice. To go beyond this legalistic perspective, we must remember that in Scripture, justice is essentially conceived as a trusting abandonment to the will of God.
For his part, Jesus expresses himself more often on the importance of faith than on the observance of the law. It is in this sense that we must understand his words, when, at table with Matthew and other tax collectors and sinners, he says to the Pharisees who criticise him: « Go and learn what this means: I want mercy, not sacrifice. Indeed, I have not come to call the just, but sinners » (Mt 9:13). In the face of a vision of justice as mere observance of the law that divides between the just and sinners, Jesus points to the great gift of mercy which goes in search of sinners to offer them forgiveness and salvation. One then understands why Jesus was rejected by the Pharisees and the doctors of the law, because of his vision that liberates and is a source of renewal. To be faithful to the law, they placed weights on the shoulders of people, rendering vain the mercy of the Father. Respect for the law cannot be an obstacle to the requirements of human dignity.
The evocation that Jesus makes of the prophet Hosea – « I want fidelity, not sacrifice » (6:6) – is very significant. Jesus affirms that the rule of life of his disciples must henceforth integrate the primacy of mercy, as He himself bore witness, sharing his meal with sinners. Mercy reveals itself once again as a fundamental dimension of the mission of Jesus. It is a true challenge to those he spoke to, who stopped at the formal respect of the law. Jesus, on the contrary, goes beyond the law; his sharing with those whom the law considered sinners makes us understand how far his mercy goes.
The apostle Paul travelled a similar path. Before meeting Christ on the road to Damascus, he devoted his life to observing in an irreproachable manner the justice of the law (cf. Phil 3:6). Conversion to Christ led him to change his outlook completely, to the point that he affirms in the Letter to the Galatians: « We too have believed in Christ Jesus in order to become just through faith in Christ, and not through the practice of the Law » (2:16). His understanding of justice changes radically. Paul henceforth places faith first, and no longer the law. It is not the observance of the law that saves, but faith in Jesus Christ, who by his death and resurrection has given us the mercy that justifies. God's justice henceforth becomes liberation for those who are slaves of sin and of all its consequences. God's justice is his forgiveness (cf. Ps 51:11-16).
21. Mercy is not contrary to justice, but illustrates the behaviour of God towards the sinner, offering him a new possibility to repent, to convert and to believe. What the prophet Hosea experienced helps us to see the surpassing of justice by mercy. The epoch of this prophet is among the most dramatic in the history of the Hebrew people. The Kingdom is close to being destroyed; the people have not remained faithful to the covenant, they have moved away from God and have lost the faith of the Fathers. Following a human logic, it is just that God should think of rejecting the unfaithful people: they were not faithful to the pact, and therefore deserve the penalty provided, that is, exile. The words of the prophet attest to this: « He will not return to the land of Egypt; Assyria will become his king, for they have refused to return to me » (Hos 11:5). However, after this reaction that appeals to justice, the prophet radically changes his language and reveals the true face of God: « My heart turns against me; at the same time, my inmost being trembles. I will not act according to the ardour of my anger, I will no longer destroy Israel, for I am God, and not man: in your midst I am the holy God, and I do not come to exterminate » (11:8-9). Commenting on the words of the prophet, Saint Augustine writes: « It is easier for God to hold back anger than mercy ».[13] It is exactly so. The anger of God lasts but an instant, and his mercy is eternal.
If God stopped at justice, he would cease to be God; he would be like all men who invoke respect for the law. Justice alone does not suffice, and experience shows that to appeal solely to it risks annihilating it. It is thus that God goes beyond justice with mercy and forgiveness. This does not mean devaluing justice or rendering it superfluous, on the contrary. Whoever errs will have to serve his penalty, but that is not the last word, but the beginning of conversion, in experiencing the tenderness of forgiveness. God does not refuse justice. He integrates it and surpasses it in a greater event in which one experiences love, the foundation of a true justice. We must pay great attention to what Paul writes, so as not to make the same error that the Apostle reproaches to his Jewish contemporaries: « By not recognising the justice that comes from God, and by seeking to establish their own justice, they did not submit to the justice of God. For the culmination of the Law is Christ, so that justice may be given to every person who believes » (Rom 10:3-4). This justice of God is the mercy granted to all as a grace coming from the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Cross of Christ is therefore the judgment of God on each of us and on the world, since it gives us the certainty of love and of new life.
22. The jubilee brings us to reflect on indulgence. It takes on a particular importance during this Holy Year. God's forgiveness for our sins has no limit. In the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God makes manifest this love that goes as far as to destroy the sin of men. It is possible to let oneself be reconciled with God through the paschal mystery and the mediation of the Church. God is always ready to forgive and never tires of offering it in a way always new and unexpected. We all experience sin. We are aware of being called to perfection (cf. Mt 5:48), but we strongly feel the weight of sin. When we perceive the power of the grace that transforms us, we experience the force of the sin that conditions us. Despite forgiveness, our life is marked by the contradictions that are the consequence of our sins. In the sacrament of Reconciliation, God forgives sins, and they are really blotted out; yet there remains the negative imprint of sins in our behaviours and our thoughts. God's mercy is however stronger than this. It becomes the indulgence of the Father who reaches the forgiven sinner through the Bride of Christ, and frees him from all that remains of the consequences of sin, granting him to act with charity, to grow in love rather than to fall back into sin.
The Church lives the communion of saints. In the eucharist, this communion, which is a gift of God, is rendered present as a spiritual union that binds believers with the Saints and the Blessed whose number is incalculable (cf. Rev 7:4). Their holiness comes to the aid of our fragility, and Mother Church is thus able, by her prayer and her life, to go out to meet the weakness of some with the holiness of others. To live the indulgence of the Holy Year is to draw near to the mercy of the Father, with the certainty that his forgiveness extends to the whole life of believers. The indulgence is the experience of the holiness of the Church who grants to all to take part in the benefit of the redemption of Christ, bringing it about that forgiveness reaches as far as the extreme consequences that the love of God reaches. Let us live the Jubilee intensely, asking the Father for the forgiveness of sins and the extent of his merciful indulgence.
23. The value of mercy surpasses the frontiers of the Church. It is the bond with Judaism and Islam which consider it one of the most significant attributes of God. Israel first received this revelation which remains in history as the point of departure of an immeasurable richness to be offered to all of humanity. We have seen it, the pages of the Old Testament are imbued with mercy, since they recount the works accomplished by the Lord in favour of his people in the most difficult moments of its history. Islam for its part attributes to the Creator the qualifiers Merciful and Clement. These invocations are often found on the lips of Muslims who feel accompanied and sustained by mercy in their daily weakness. They too believe that no one can limit divine mercy, for its doors are always open.
May this Jubilee Year, lived in mercy, foster the encounter with these religions and the other noble religious traditions. May it make us more open to dialogue in order to know and understand one another better. May it drive out every form of closure and contempt. May it repel every form of violence and discrimination.
24. May our thought turn to the Mother of Mercy. May the gentleness of her gaze accompany us in this Holy Year, so that all may rediscover the joy of the tenderness of God. No one has known like Mary the depth of the mystery of God made man. Her entire life was modelled by the presence of mercy made flesh. The Mother of the Crucified and Risen One entered into the sanctuary of divine mercy by participating intimately in the mystery of his love.
Chosen to be the Mother of the Son of God, Mary was prepared from all time by the love of the Father to be theArk of the Covenantbetween God and men. She kept in her heart the divine mercy in perfect harmony with her Son Jesus. Her canticle of praise, at the threshold of Elizabeth's house, was consecrated to the mercy that extends « from age to age » (Lk 1:50). We too were present in these prophetic words of the Virgin Mary, and it will be for us a comfort and a support when we pass through the Holy Door to taste the fruits of divine mercy.
Near the cross, Mary with John, the disciple of love, is witness to the words of forgiveness that spring from the lips of Jesus. The supreme forgiveness offered to the one who crucified him shows us how far the mercy of God can go. Mary attests that the mercy of the Son of God has no limit and reaches each and every one without excluding anyone. Let us address to her the ancient and ever new prayer of theSalve Regina, since she never tires of casting upon us a merciful gaze, and renders us worthy to contemplate the face of mercy, her Son Jesus.
May our prayer extend also to so many Saints and Blessed who made mercy the mission of their life. This thought is addressed in particular to the great apostle of mercy, Saint Faustina Kowalska. She who was called to enter into the depths of divine mercy, may she intercede for us and obtain for us to live and to walk always in the forgiveness of God and in unshakeable confidence in his love.
25. An extraordinary Holy Year to live in the life of every day the mercy that the Father has poured out on us from all time. During this Jubilee, let us allow ourselves to be surprised by God. He never tires of opening the door of his heart to repeat that he loves us and that he wants to share his life with us. The Church strongly feels the urgency of proclaiming the mercy of God. The life of the Church is authentic and credible when mercy is the object of a convincing proclamation. She knows that her first mission, above all in our epoch filled with great hopes and strong contradictions, is to bring each and every one into the great mystery of the mercy of God, by contemplating the face of Christ. The Church is first called to be a truthful witness of mercy, professing it and living it as the centre of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. From the heart of the Trinity, from the very depths of the mystery of God, springs and flows unceasingly the great river of mercy. This source will never be exhausted for all those who draw near to it. Whenever there is need of it, one will be able to have access to it, because the mercy of God is without end. As unfathomable as is the depth of the mystery it contains, so inexhaustible is the richness that flows from it.
May the Church, in this Jubilee Year, echo the Word of God which resounds, strong and convincing, like a word and a gesture of forgiveness, of support, of help, of love. May she never tire of offering mercy and be always patient to encourage and to forgive. May the Church make herself the voice of every man and every woman, and repeat with confidence and without ceasing: « Remember, Lord, your tenderness, your love which is from all time » (Ps 25:6).
Given at Rome, near Saint Peter's, on 11 April, the Vigil of the IInd Sunday of Easter or of Divine Mercy, in the Year of the Lord 2015, the third of my pontificate.
Source: news.va
