mercy – Page 2 – Communio

Second Sunday of Easter: Thomas shows us the contours of God’s mercy

The Second Sunday of Easter continues the drama of the Resurrection that we first lived last week. Through liturgical history we’ve called today Quasimodo Sunday, Thomas Sunday, Dominica in albis, and Mercy Sunday. See this past post.

This music text tells the narrative:

Although the doors were closed,

Jesus appeared to his disciples.

He took away their fear and granted them peace.

Then He called Thomas and said to him:

“Why did you doubt My resurrection from the dead? Place your hand in My side; see My hands and My feet.

Through your lack of faith, everyone will come to know of My passion and My resurrection, and they will cry out with you:

My Lord and My God, glory to You!”

The perceived lack of faith Saint Thomas is really the invitation made to all of us to engage our freedom in a new way, and to allow our YES to be coherent before Mercy Himself.

Urbi et Orbi 2013: God’s mercy can make even the driest land become a garden, Pope teaches

The Urbi et Orbi address, 2013, of the Bishop of Rome and Roman Pontiff, Pope Francis.

Dear brothers and sisters in Rome and throughout the world, Happy Easter!

What a joy it is for me to announce this message: Christ is risen! I would like it to go out to every house and every family, especially where the suffering is greatest, in hospitals, in prisons…

Most of all, I would like it to enter every heart, for it is there that God wants to sow this Good News: Jesus is risen, there is hope for you, you are no longer in the power of sin, of evil! Love has triumphed, mercy has been victorious!

We too, like the women who were Jesus’ disciples, who went to the tomb and found it empty, may wonder what this event means (cf. Lk 24:4). What does it mean that Jesus is risen? It means that the love of God is stronger than evil and death itself; it means that the love of God can transform our lives and let those desert places in our hearts bloom.

Continue reading Urbi et Orbi 2013: God’s mercy can make even the driest land become a garden, Pope teaches

God speaks through the Cross and responds to evil, God’s word is Mercy

The Cross is the word through which God has responded to evil in the world. Sometimes it may seem as though God does not react to evil, as if he is silent. And yet, God has spoken, he has replied, and his answer is the Cross of Christ: a word which is love, mercy, forgiveness. It is also reveals a judgment, namely that God, in judging us, loves us. Remember this: God judges, loving. If I embrace his love then I am saved, if I refuse it, then I am condemned, not by him, but my own self, because God never condemns, he only loves and saves. Dear brothers and sisters, the word of the Cross is also the answer which Christians offer in the face of evil, the evil that continues to work in us and around us. Christians must respond to evil with good, taking the Cross upon themselves as Jesus did.

Pope Francis

Via Crucis 2013

excerpt of a message

Pope Francis: we accompany, we follow Jesus

Pope Francis’ first celebration of the Holy Week liturgies. His homily for Palm Sunday follows:

1. Jesus enters Jerusalem. The crowd of disciples accompanies him in festive mood, their garments are stretched out before him, there is talk of the miracles he has accomplished, and loud praises are heard: “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (Lk 19:38).

Crowds, celebrating, praise, blessing, peace: joy fills the air. Jesus has awakened great hopes, especially in the hearts of the simple, the humble, the poor, the forgotten, those who do not matter in the eyes of the world. He understands human sufferings, he has shown the face of God’s mercy, he has bent down to heal body and soul. Now he enters the Holy City! This is Jesus.This is the heart that looks on all of us, watching our illnesses, our sins. The love of Jesus is great. He enters Jerusalem with this love and watches all of us.

It is a beautiful scene, the light of the love of Jesus, that light of his heart, joy, celebration.

At the beginning of Mass, we repeated all this. We waved our palms, our olive branches, we sang “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord” (Antiphon); we too welcomed Jesus; we too expressed our joy at accompanying him, at knowing him to be close, present in us and among us as a friend, a brother, and also as a King: that is, a shining beacon for our lives. Jesus is God, but he humbled himself to walk with us. He is our friend, our brother. Here, he enlightens us on the journey. And so today we welcome Him. And here the first word that comes to mind is “joy!” Do not be men and women of sadness: a Christian can never be sad! Never give way to discouragement! Ours is not a joy that comes from having many possessions, but from having encountered a Person: Jesus, from knowing that with him we are never alone, even at difficult moments, even when our life’s journey comes up against problems and obstacles that seem insurmountable, and there are so many of them! It is at this time that the enemy comes, the devil comes, often disguised as an angel who insidiously tells us his word. Do not listen to him! We follow Jesus!

We accompany, we follow Jesus, but above all we know that he accompanies us and carries us on his shoulders. This is our joy, this is the hope that we must bring to this world of ours. Let us bring the joy of the faith to everyone! Let us not be robbed of hope! Let us not be robbed of hope! The hope that Jesus gives us!

2. A second word: why does Jesus enter Jerusalem? Or better: how does Jesus enter Jerusalem? The crowds acclaim him as King. And he does not deny it, he does not tell them to be silent (cf. Lk 19:39-40). But what kind of a King is Jesus? Let us take a look at him: he is riding on a donkey, he is not accompanied by a court, he is not surrounded by an army as a symbol of power. He is received by humble people, simple folk, who sense that there is more to Jesus, who have the sense of faith that says, “This is the Savior.”

Jesus does not enter the Holy City to receive the honors reserved to earthly kings, to the powerful, to rulers; he enters to be scourged, insulted and abused, as Isaiah foretold in the First Reading (cf. Is 50:6). He enters to receive a crown of thorns, a staff, a purple robe: his kingship becomes an object of derision. He enters to climb Calvary, carrying his burden of wood. And this brings us to the second word: Cross. Jesus enters Jerusalem in order to die on the Cross. And it is here that his kingship shines forth in godly fashion: his royal throne is the wood of the Cross! I think of what Benedict XVI said to the cardinals: “You are princes but of a Crucified King” that is, Christ’s throne. Jesus takes it upon himself..why? Why the Cross? Jesus takes upon himself the evil, the filth, the sin of the world, including our own sin, and he cleanses it, he cleanses it with his blood, with the mercy and the love of God. Let us look around: how many wounds are inflicted upon humanity by evil! Wars, violence, economic conflicts that hit the weakest, greed for money, which no-one can bring with him. My grandmother would say to us children, no shroud has pockets! Greed for money, power, corruption, divisions, crimes against human life and against creation! And – each of us knows well – our personal sins: our failures in love and respect towards God, towards our neighbor and towards the whole of creation. Jesus on the Cross feels the whole weight of the evil, and with the force of God’s love he conquers it, he defeats it with his resurrection. This is the good that Christ brings to all of us from the Cross, his throne. Christ’s Cross embraced with love does not lead to sadness, but to joy! The joy of being saved and doing a little bit what he did that day of his death.

3. Today in this Square, there are many young people: for 28 years Palm Sunday has been World Youth Day! This is our third word: youth! Dear young people, I think of you celebrating around Jesus, waving your olive branches. I think of you crying out his name and expressing your joy at being with him! You have an important part in the celebration of faith! You bring us the joy of faith and you tell us that we must live the faith with a young heart, always, even at the age of seventy or eighty! A young heart! With Christ, the heart never grows old! Yet all of us, all of you know very well that the King whom we follow and who accompanies us is very special: he is a King who loves even to the Cross and who teaches us to serve and to love. And you are not ashamed of his Cross! On the contrary, you embrace it, because you have understood that it is in giving ourselves that we have true joy and that God has conquered evil through love. You carry the pilgrim Cross through all the Continents, along the highways of the world! You carry it in response to Jesus’ call: “Go, make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19), which is the theme of World Youth Day this year. You carry it so as to tell everyone that on the Cross Jesus knocked down the wall of enmity that divides people and nations, and he brought reconciliation and peace. Dear friends, I too am setting out on a journey with you, from today, in the footsteps of Blessed John Paul II and Benedict XVI. We are already close to the next stage of this great pilgrimage of Christ’s Cross. I look forward joyfully to next July in Rio de Janeiro! I will see you in that great city in Brazil! Prepare well – prepare spiritually above all – in your communities, so that our gathering in Rio may be a sign of faith for the whole world. Young people need to tell the world: “It is good to follow Jesus, it is good to go with Jesus, the message of Jesus is good, it is good to come out of ourselves, from the edges of existence of the world and to bring Jesus to others!”

Three words: Joy, Cross and Youth.

Let us ask the intercession of the Virgin Mary. She teaches us the joy of meeting Christ, the love with which we must look to the foot of the Cross, the enthusiasm of the young heart with which we must follow him during this Holy Week and throughout our lives. Amen.

Pope Francis: “Mercy is the Lord’s most powerful message.”

At his first praying of the Angelus and address, the Holy Father told the crowd of 300K this experience.

The Pope “told a story, of an elderly widow he encountered during a Mass for the sick celebrated in connection with a visit of the image of Our Lady of Fatima. “I went to confession during the Mass,” he said, “and near the end – I had to go to do confirmations afterward, and an elderly lady approached me – humble [she was] so very humble, more than eighty years old. I looked at her, and said, ‘Grandmother,’ – where I come from, we call elderly people grandmother and grandfather – ‘would you like to make your confession?’ ‘Yes,’ she said – and I said, ‘but, if you have not sinned…’ and she said, ‘we all have sinned.’ [I replied], ‘if perhaps He should not forgive [you]?’ and, sure, she replied, ‘The Lord forgives everything.’ I asked, ‘How do you know this for sure, madam?’ and she replied, ‘If the Lord hadn’t forgiven all, then the world wouldn’t [still] be here.’ And, I wanted to ask her, ‘Madam, did you study at the Gregorian (the Pontifical Gregorian University, founded in 1551 by St Ignatius Loyola, the oldest Jesuit university in the world)?’ – because that is wisdom, which the Holy Spirit gives – interior wisdom regarding the mercy of God. Let us not forget this word: God never tires of forgiving us,” he repeated, “but we sometimes tire of asking Him to forgive us.” Pope Francis went on to say, “Let us never tire of asking God’s forgiveness.”

Source: Vatican Radio

Mother Marie des Douleurs, the anniversary of death of a spiritual mother of mercy

Today marks the 29th anniversary of death of Mother Marie des Douleurs, known in history as Suzanne Wrotnowska (1902-1983), the foundress of the Congregation of Benedictines of Jesus Crucified. A true spiritual mother of all who need mercy, especially women who would not be able to enter the monastic life due physical impediments. Mother Marie’s spiritual maternity extended also to priests who haven’t repented of their sin.

The vocation of a Benedictine sister of Jesus Crucified is to be a victim, a total offering of self to the Lord for priests in view of who we know our Messiah to be, Jesus Christ, priest and head of the Church (Christ the King). The law of the gift is lived par excellence in union with those in most need of mercy. The vocation is especially needed today for those priests, bishops and deacons who are public sinners and who have not repented of their sins. We are all aware of our own sin, we all need forgiveness and to forgive, we also note that not all the clergy have been living a life of purity of heart. And for this intention a Benedictine of Jesus Crucified promises to offer prayer and sacrifice.

A friend, Father Mark tells us, upon learning from Father Luc de Wouters, OSB, who wrote the biography of Mother Marie, who said that she was facing death Mother Marie said,

In the eventide of my life, I have such a need of recollection, such a need to obey and to humble myself. I am unworthy of having been chosen to found the Congregation. I suffer being pulled between heaven and earth. The cross grows heavy. The Lord gave me as my portion the souls of guilty priests…my own soul disappears beneath an accumulation of iniquities! But I had asked for this humiliation! How is that the Lord was able to make use of so little a thing? His fidelity, His consuming love, this all my life, my light my death.

Mother Marie des Douleurs is also the author of Joy Out of Sorrow (1965).

In the US, there is one monastery of 17 nuns at the Monastery of the Glorious Cross, Branford, CT.

The biography of Mother Marie is written by Father Luc de Wouters, OSB, Le Sperpent et la croix, is available by writing to Soeur Marie-Isabelle, OSB, Monastère Saint Benoît, 25330, Nans-sous-Sainte Anne, France.

Our Lady of Mercy

Hail, Holy
Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To you do we cry
poor banished children of Eve. To you do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping
in this valley of tears. Turn then, O most gracious advocate, your eyes of mercy
toward us and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of your
womb, Jesus.

O clement! O loving! O sweet Virgin Mary!

The narrative of this feast of Our Lady has its origin in the devotion of Saint Peter Nolasco in the late 12th century France. Father Paul Haffner tells us more here.

The feast of Our Lady of Mercy is close to the heart of the Sisters of Mercy of Alma, and those who have an awareness of the role of Mercy in life.

May Our Lady of Mercy be with us, pray for us.

Celebrating a priest’s 25th

Today, we celebrated a friend’s 25th anniversary of priestly ordination. The Very Reverend Canon Matthew R. Maurielo, priest of the Diocese of Bridgeport, was honored by a host of family and friends. His parents were especially joyous.

Holy Mass was celebrated at Father Matthew’s parish, Saint Roch’s (Greenwich, CT) by his friend and spiritual father the Most Reverend Arthur J. Serratelli, bishop of Paterson, NJ.

With the Church we pray,

Holy Father, who by no merit of his own, you chose Father Matthew for communion with the eternal priesthood of your Christ and for the ministry of your Church, grant that he may be an ardent yet gentle preacher of the Gospel and a faithful steward of your mysteries.

Father Matthew is the author of Mercies Remembered (2011).

Ad multos annos, Don Mateo!

Confession: Celebration of mercy, not trial before prosecution

“As confessors we are called to show mercy and
hope, to be fathers more than judges, to take on the penitent’s pain and listen
with much patience,” Cardinal Raymond Burke told CNS correspondent Carol Glatz.

Cardinal Burke spoke on the role of the priest in confession: be merciful, not judgmental. Amazing. You would not know that this is the teaching of the Church given some of our priests. God’s minister is not equal to being God. Thanks to the Cardinal!

Bertone recalls the Church’s particular vocation: being a sign and instrument of God’s love and justice

The other day the Pope’s Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio
Bertone SDB celebrated Mass for the Vatican’s jurists where he noted “with the
beginning of a new judicial year … we are again invited to reflect upon the
relationship between divine and human justice, so that our consciences may be
illuminated and our actions may, as far as possible, correspond to the divine
will and its plan of love for each individual and for the community of man.” Moreover,
Bertone picked up a current theme of Benedict’s these days, that is, that of
justice, in which he called attention to the specific vocation of the Church to
be “a sign and instrument of God’s love [charity], and of His justice which is always an
expression of His merciful love.”