>>DIVINE
MERCY
APOSTOLATE .... Come Back To Me >>> DMA FaceBook
. BIBLE . Diary . Rich in Mercy [ I ] [ II ] [ III ] [ IV ] [ V ] [ VI ] [ VII ] [ VIII ]
|
IOANNES PAULUS PP. II |
|
|
|
VIII. THE PRAYER OF THE CHURCH IN OUR TIMES 15. The Church Appeals
to the Mercy of God The Church proclaims the truth of God's
mercy revealed in the crucified and risen Christ, and she professes it in
various ways. Furthermore, she seeks to practice mercy towards people through
people, and she sees in this an indispensable condition for solicitude for a
better and "more human" world, today and tomorrow. However, at no
time and in no historical period-especially at a moment as critical as our
own-can the Church forget the prayer that is a cry for the mercy of God amid
the many forms of evil which weigh upon humanity and threaten it. Precisely
this is the fundamental right and duty of the Church in Christ Jesus, her
right and duty towards God and towards humanity. The more the human conscience succumbs to secularization, loses its
sense of the very meaning of the word "mercy," moves away from God
and distances itself from the mystery of mercy, the more the Church has the
right and the duty to appeal to the God of mercy "with loud cries."135 These "loud cries" should
be the mark of the Church of our times, cries uttered to God to implore His
mercy, the certain manifestation of which she professes and proclaims as
having already come in Jesus crucified and risen, that is, in the Paschal
Mystery. It is this mystery which bears within itself the most complete
revelation of mercy, that is, of that
love which is more powerful than death, more powerful than sin and every
evil, the love which lifts man up when he falls into the abyss and frees him
from the greatest threats. Modern man feels these threats. What has
been said above in this regard is only a rough outline. Modern man often
anxiously wonders about the solution to the terrible tensions which have
built up in the world and which entangle humanity. And if at times he lacks
the courage to utter the word "mercy,"
or if in his conscience empty of religious content he does not find the
equivalent, so much greater is the need for the Church to utter his word, not
only in her own name but also in the name of all the men and women of our
time. Everything that I have said in the present
document on mercy should therefore be continually transformed into an ardent
prayer: into a cry that implores mercy according to the needs of man in the
modern world. May this cry be full of that truth about mercy which has found
such rich expression in Sacred Scripture and in Tradition, as also in the
authentic life of faith of countless generations of the People of God. With this cry let us, like the sacred writers, call upon the God who cannot despise
anything that He has made,136 the God who is faithful to Himself,
to His fatherhood and His love. And, like the prophets, let us appeal to that
love which has maternal characteristics and which, like a mother, follows
each of her children, each lost sheep, even if they should number millions,
even if in the world evil should prevail over goodness, even if contemporary
humanity should deserve a new "flood" on account of its sins, as
once the generation of Noah did. Let us have recourse to that fatherly love
revealed to us by Christ in His messianic mission, a love which reached its
culmination in His cross, in His death and resurrection. Let us have recourse
to God through Christ, mindful of the words of Mary's Magnificat, which proclaim mercy "from
generation to generation." Let us implore God's mercy for the
present generation. May the Church which, following the example of Mary, also
seeks to be the spiritual mother of mankind, express in this prayer her
maternal solicitude and at the same time her confident love, that love from
which is born the most burning need for prayer. Let
us offer up our petitions, directed by the faith, by the hope, and by the
charity which Christ has planted in our hearts. This attitude is likewise love of God, whom modern
man has sometimes separated far from himself, made extraneous to himself,
proclaiming in various ways that God is "superfluous." This is,
therefore, love of God, the insulting rejection of whom by modern man we feel
profoundly, and we are ready to cry out with Christ on the cross: "Father, forgive them; for they know not
what they do."137 At the same time it is love of
people, of all men and women without any exception or division: without
difference of race, culture, language, or world outlook, without distinction
between friends and enemies. This is love for people-it desires every true
good for each individual and for every human community, every family, every
nation, every social group, for young people, adults, parents, the elderly-a
love for everyone, without exception. This is love, or rather an anxious solicitude
to ensure for each individual every true good and to remove and drive away
every sort of evil. And, if any of our contemporaries do not
share the faith and hope which lead me, as a servant of Christ and steward of
the mysteries of God,138 to implore God's mercy for humanity
in this hour of history, let them at least try to understand the reason for
my concern. It is dictated by love for man, for all that is human and which,
according to the intuitions of many of our contemporaries, is
threatened by an immense danger. The mystery of Christ, which reveals to us
the great vocation of man and which led me to emphasize in the encyclical Redemptor hominis
his incomparable dignity, also obliges me to proclaim mercy as God's merciful
love, revealed in that same mystery of Christ. It likewise obliges me to have
recourse to that mercy and to beg for it at this difficult, critical phase of
the history of the Church and of the world, as we approach the end of the
second millennium. In the name of Jesus Christ crucified and
risen, in the spirit of His messianic mission, enduring in the history of
humanity, we raise our voices and pray that the Love which is in the Father
may once again be revealed at this stage of history, and that, through the
work of the Son and Holy Spirit, it may be shown to be present in our modern
world and to be more powerful than evil: more powerful than sin and death. We
pray for this through the intercession of her who does not cease to proclaim
"mercy...from generation to
generation," and also through the intercession of those for whom there
have been completely fulfilled the words of the Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall
obtain mercy."139 In continuing the great task of
implementing the Second Vatican Council, in which we can rightly see a new
phase of the self- realization of the Church-in keeping with the epoch in
which it has been our destiny to live-the Church herself must be constantly
guided by the full consciousness that in this work it is not permissible for
her, for any reason, to withdraw into herself. The reason for her existence
is, in fact, to reveal God, that Father who allows us to "see" Him in Christ.140 No matter how strong the resistance
of human history may be, no matter how marked the diversity of contemporary
civilization, no matter how great the denial of God in the human world, so
much the greater must be the Church's closeness to that mystery which, hidden
for centuries in God, was then truly shared with man, in time, through Jesus
Christ. With my apostolic blessing. Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, on the
thirtieth day of November, the First Sunday of Advent, in the year 1980, the
third of the pontificate. JOHN PAUL II |
I. HE WHO SEES ME
SEES THE FATHER
IV. THE PARABLE
OF THE PRODIGAL SON
VI.
"MERCY...FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION"
VII. THE MERCY
OF GOD IN THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH
VIII. THE
PRAYER OF THE CHURCH IN OUR TIMES
>>DIVINE MERCY APOSTOLATE
Diary Come Back To Me Rich in Mercy
MHII 230613