TODAY WE CELEBRATE the Sunday of the Divine Mercy. We stand in need of mercy because we have messed up! We have hurt people and made mistakes. We are hurt and stay stranded with habits and hang ups as a result of the wrongs we have committed. The Church has no qualms in believing in the unconditional and unrestrained mercy of God.
“God does not put any conditions for mercy.” This apparently harmless statement is but not so easy to subscribe to, because although God is indeed unconditionally generous and merciful, the faithful are not! We have grown up with a catechism that taught us to fulfill certain conditions to please God in order to obtain something in return. How would you react to the idea of forgiveness for someone who refuses to repent of his wrongs and ask for it? Well, this argument could raise some eyebrows.
Pope Francis has, over the eight years of his papacy, transformed the image of the Church from being a triumphant one into a “field hospital” where every single soul stands in need of healing and the mercy of God. In the very first Mass he celebrated as pontiff, he said: “The message of Jesus is mercy… it is the Lord’s strongest message.”
Pope’s proclamation of the mercy of God found its peak moment in the celebration of the extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy from 8 December 2015 to 20 November 2016. In the same year, an interview with the Pope in a book form was published with the title: The Name of God is Mercy. Indeed, a new sense of hope and new-found joy was visible in the life of the Church.
Faithful who have not been to Church for years found themselves back in the Church and to their life in faith, thanks to a comforting sense of mercy, empathy and welcome they experienced in the style of the pope. His appeal for refugees who were forced out of their own homes due to wars, terrorism and hunger; his mediation for peacebuilding in the Middle East are etched in the hearts of humanity. Who can forget the image of Pope Francis kissing the feet of the South Sudan leaders, pleading for peace and harmony?
His approach towards contentious and difficult questions such as women’s ordination, sexual orientations, divorces and Communion of the divorced and remarried people etc., was always with great caution and compassion. His approach of mercy—as well as forgiveness—struck a hugely welcome note. But not everyone was pleased with this new understanding of mercy and began to raise difficult questions that could undermine either the papal exhortations on mercy of God or the centuries old understanding of the Church.
The latest in the controversy came up in mid-March when the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith clarified that the priests should not bless same-sex unions. But a couple of days later, in a message on the 150th anniversary of the proclamation of St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori (1696 to 1787) as a doctor of the church, Pope Francis reminded the pastors that “Moral theology must concern reality and people, not just principles.”
Yes, the pope gives us a lesson on this Sunday of the Divine Mercy: “The radical call of the gospel must not be set against human weakness, instead it is always necessary to find the road that does not alienate (people) but brings hearts closer to God.” jose CMF
