>>DIVINE
MERCY
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. BIBLE . Diary . Rich in Mercy [ I ] [ II ] [ III ] [ IV ] [ V ] [ VI ] [ VII ] [ VIII ]
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IOANNES PAULUS PP. II |
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Blessing Venerable Brothers and dear sons
and daughters, |
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I. HE WHO SEES ME SEES THE FATHER (cf. John 14:9) 1. The Revelation of
Mercy It is "God, who is rich in mercy" 1
[ Eph. 2:4 ] whom Jesus Christ has revealed to us as Father: it
is His very Son who, in Himself, has manifested Him and made Him known to us.2
Memorable in this regard is the moment when Philip, one of the twelve
Apostles, turned to Christ and said: "Lord, show us the Father, and we
shall be satisfied"; and Jesus replied: "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me...? He who
has seen me has seen the Father."3
These words were spoken during the farewell discourse at the end of the
paschal supper, which was followed by the events of those holy days during
which confirmation was to be given once and for all of the fact that "God, who is rich in mercy, out of the
great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our
trespasses, made us alive together with Christ."4
Following the teaching of the
Second Vatican Council and paying close attention to the special needs of our
times, I devoted the encyclical Redemptor hominis to the truth about man, a truth that is
revealed to us in its fullness and depth in Christ. A no less important need
in these critical and difficult times impels me to draw attention once again
in Christ to the countenance of the "Father of mercies and God of all comfort."5
We read in the Constitution Gaudium et spes: "Christ
the new Adam...fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his lofty
calling," and does it "in
the very revelation of the mystery of the Father and of his love."6
The words that I have quoted are clear testimony to the fact that man cannot
be manifested in the full dignity of his nature without reference - not only
on the level of concepts but also in an integrally existential way - to God.
Man and man's lofty calling are revealed in Christ through the revelation of
the mystery of the Father and His love. For this reason it is now fitting
to reflect on this mystery. It is called for by the varied experiences of the
Church and of contemporary man. It is also demanded by the pleas of many
human hearts, their sufferings and hopes, their anxieties and expectations.
While it is true that every individual human being is, as I said in my
encyclical Redemptor hominis,
the way for the Church, at the same time the Gospel and the whole of
Tradition constantly show us that we must travel this day with every
individual just as Christ traced it out by revealing in Himself the Father
and His love.7
In Jesus Christ, every path to man, as it has been assigned once and for all
to the Church in the changing context of the times, is simultaneously an
approach to the Father and His love. The Second Vatican Council has confirmed
this truth for our time. The more the Church's mission is
centered upon man-the more it is, so to speak, anthropocentric-the more it
must be confirmed and actualized theocentrically,
that is to say, be directed in Jesus Christ to the Father. While the various
currents of human thought both in the past and at the present have tended and
still tend to separate theocentrism and anthropocentrism,
and even to set them in opposition to each other, the Church, following
Christ, seeks to link them up in human history, in a deep and organic way.
And this is also one of the basic principles, perhaps the most important one,
of the teaching of the last Council. Since, therefore, in the present phase
of the Church's history we put before ourselves as our primary task the
implementation of the doctrine of the great Council,
we must act upon this principle with faith, with an open mind and with all
our heart. In the encyclical already referred to, I have tried to show that
the deepening and the many-faceted enrichment of the Church's consciousness
resulting from the Council must open our minds and our hearts more widely to
Christ. Today I wish to say that openness to Christ, who as the Redeemer of
the world fully reveals man himself," can only be achieved through an
ever more mature reference to the Father and His love. |
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2. The Incarnation of
Mercy Although God "dwells in unapproachable light,"8
He speaks to man the means of the whole of
the universe: "ever since the
creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and
deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made."9
This indirect and imperfect knowledge, achieved by the intellect seeking God
by means of creatures through the visible world, falls short of "vision of the Father." "No one has ever seen God,"
writes St. John, in order to stress the truth that "the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him
known."10
This "making known" reveals God in the most profound mystery of His
being, one and three, surrounded by "unapproachable light."11
Nevertheless, through this "making known" by Christ we know God
above all in His relationship of love for man: in His "philanthropy."12
It is precisely here that "His
invisible nature" becomes in a special way "visible," incomparably more
visible than through all the other "things
that have been made": it becomes visible in Christ and through
Christ, through His actions and His words, and finally through His death on the
cross and His resurrection. In this way, in Christ and through
Christ, God also becomes especially visible in His mercy; that is to say, there is emphasized that attribute of the
divinity which the Old Testament, using various concepts and terms, already
defined as "mercy."
Christ confers on the whole of the Old Testament tradition about God's mercy
a definitive meaning. Not only does He speak of it and explain it by the use
of comparisons and parables, but above all He Himself makes it incarnate and
personifies it. He Himself, in a certain sense, is mercy. To the person who sees it in Him - and finds it in Him -
God becomes "visible" in
a particular way as the Father who is rich
in mercy."13
The present-day mentality, more
perhaps than that of people in the past, seems opposed to a God of mercy, and
in fact tends to exclude from life and to remove from the human heart the
very idea of mercy. The word and the concept of "mercy" seem to cause uneasiness in man, who, thanks to the
enormous development of science and technology, never before known in
history, has become the master of the earth and has subdued and dominated it.14
This dominion over the earth, sometimes understood in a one - sided and
superficial way, seems to have no room for mercy.
However, in this regard we can profitably refer to the picture of "man's situation in the world today"
as described at the beginning of the Constitution
Gaudium et spes. Here
we read the following sentences: "In the light of the foregoing factors
there appears the dichotomy of a world that is at once powerful and weak,
capable of doing what is noble and what is base, disposed to freedom and
slavery, progress and decline, brotherhood and hatred. Man is growing
conscious that the forces he has unleashed are in his own hands and that it
is up to him to control them or be enslaved by them."15
The situation of the world today
not only displays transformations that give grounds for hope in a better
future for man on earth, but also reveals a multitude of threats, far
surpassing those known up till now. Without ceasing to point out these
threats on various occasions (as in addresses at UNO, to UNESCO, to FAO and
elsewhere), the Church must at the same time examine them in the light of the
truth received from God. The truth, revealed in Christ,
about God the "Father of mercies,"16
enables us to "see" Him
as particularly close to man especially when man is suffering, when he is
under threat at the very heart of his existence and dignity. And this is why,
in the situation of the Church and the world today, many individuals and
groups guided by a lively sense of faith are turning, I would say almost
spontaneously, to the mercy of God. They are certainly being moved to do this
by Christ Himself, who through His Spirit works within human hearts. For the
mystery of God the "Father of
mercies" revealed by Christ becomes, in the context of today's
threats to man, as it were a unique appeal addressed to the Church. In the present encyclical wish to
accept this appeal; I wish to draw from the eternal and at the same time-for
its simplicity and depth- incomparable language of revelation and faith, in
order through this same language to express once more before God and before
humanity the major anxieties of our time. In fact, revelation and faith teach
us not only to meditate in the abstract upon the mystery of God as "Father of mercies," but also to
have recourse to that mercy in the name of Christ and in union with Him. Did
not Christ say that our Father, who "sees in secret,"17
is always waiting for us to have recourse to Him in every need and always
waiting for us to study His mystery: the
mystery of the Father and His love?18 I therefore wish these
considerations to bring this mystery closer to everyone. At the same time I
wish them to be a heartfelt appeal by the Church to mercy, which humanity and
the modern world need so much. And they need mercy even though they often do
not realize it. |
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II. THE MESSIANIC MESSAGE 3. When Christ Began To
Do and To Teach Before His own townspeople, in
Nazareth, Christ refers to the words of the prophet Isaiah: "The Spirit
of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the
poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of
sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim
the acceptable year of the Lord."19
These phrases, according to Luke, are His first messianic declaration. They
are followed by the actions and words known through the Gospel. By these
actions and words Christ makes the Father present among men. It is very
significant that the people in question are especially the poor, those
without means of subsistence, those deprived of their freedom, the blind who cannot see the beauty of creation, those living with
broken hearts, or suffering from social injustice, and finally sinners. It is
especially for these last that the Messiah becomes a particularly clear sign
of God who is love, a sign of the Father. In this visible sign the people of
our own time, just like the people then, can see the Father. It is significant that, when the
messengers sent by John the Baptist came to Jesus to ask Him: "Are you
he who is to come, or shall we look for another?",20
He answered by referring to the same testimony with which He had begun His
teaching at Nazareth: "Go and tell John what it is that you have seen
and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed,
and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached
to them." He then ended with the words: "And blessed is he who
takes no offense at me".21
Especially through His lifestyle
and through His actions, Jesus revealed that love is present in the world in
which we live - an effective love, a love that addresses itself to man and
embraces everything that makes up his humanity. This love makes itself
particularly noticed in contact with suffering, injustice and poverty - in
contact with the whole historical "human condition," which in
various ways manifests man's limitation and frailty, both physical and moral.
It is precisely the mode and sphere in which love manifests itself that in
biblical language is called "mercy." Christ, then, reveals God who is Father,
who is "love," as St. John will express it in his first letter22;
Christ reveals God as "rich in mercy," as we read in St. Paul.23
This truth is not just the subject of a teaching; it is a reality made
present to us by Christ. Making the Father present as love and mercy is, in
Christ's own consciousness, the fundamental touchstone of His mission as the
Messiah; this is confirmed by the words that He uttered first in the
synagogue at Nazareth and later in the presence of His disciples and of John
the Baptist's messengers. On the basis of this way of
manifesting the presence of God who is Father, love and mercy, Jesus makes
mercy one of the principal themes of His preaching. As is His custom, He
first teaches "in parables," since these express better the very
essence of things. It is sufficient to recall the parable of the prodigal
son,24
or the parable of the Good Samaritan,25
but also - by contrast - the parable of the merciless servant.26
There are many passages in the teaching of Christ that manifest love-mercy
under some ever-fresh aspect. We need only consider the Good Shepherd who
goes in search of the lost sheep, 27
or the woman who sweeps the house in search of the lost coin.28
The Gospel writer who particularly treats of these themes in Christ's
teaching is Luke, whose Gospel has earned the title of "the Gospel of
mercy." When one speaks of preaching, one
encounters a problem of major importance with reference to the meaning of
terms and the content of concepts, especially the content of the concept of
"mercy" (in relationship to the concept of "love"). A
grasp of the content of these concepts is the key to understanding the very
reality of mercy. And this is what is most important for us. However, before
devoting a further part of our considerations to this subject, that is to
say, to establishing the meaning of the vocabulary and the content proper to
the concept of mercy," we must note that Christ, in revealing the love -
mercy of God, at the same time demanded from people that they also should be
guided in their lives by love and mercy. This requirement forms part of the
very essence of the messianic message, and constitutes the heart of the
Gospel ethos. The Teacher expresses this both through the medium of the
commandment which He describes as "the greatest,"29
and also in the form of a blessing, when in the Sermon on the Mount He
proclaims: "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."30
In this way, the messianic message
about mercy preserves a particular divine-human dimension. Christ - the very
fulfillment of the messianic prophecy - by becoming the incarnation of the
love that is manifested with particular force with regard to the suffering,
the unfortunate and sinners, makes present and thus more fully reveals the
Father, who is God "rich in mercy." At the same time, by becoming
for people a model of merciful love for others, Christ proclaims by His
actions even more than by His words that call to mercy which is one of the
essential elements of the Gospel ethos. In this instance it is not just a
case of fulfilling a commandment or an obligation of an ethical nature; it is
also a case of satisfying a condition of major importance for God to reveal
Himself in His mercy to man: "The merciful...shall obtain mercy." |
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III. THE OLD TESTAMENT 4. The Concept of "Mercy" in the Old Testament The
concept of "mercy" in the Old Testament has a long and rich
history. We have to refer back to it in order that the mercy revealed by
Christ may shine forth more clearly. By revealing that mercy both through His
actions and through His teaching, Christ addressed Himself to people who not
only knew the concept of mercy, but who also, as the People of God of the Old
Covenant, had drawn from their age - long history a special experience of the
mercy of God. This experience was social and communal, as well as individual
and interior. Israel
was, in fact, the people of the covenant with God, a covenant that it broke
many times. Whenever it became aware of its infidelity - and in the history
of Israel there was no lack of prophets and others who awakened this
awareness-it appealed to mercy. In this regard, the books of the Old
Testament give us very many examples. Among the events and texts of greater
importance one may recall: the beginning of the history of the Judges,31
the prayer of Solomon at the inauguration of the Temple,32
part of the prophetic work of Micah,33
the consoling assurances given by Isaiah,34
the cry of the Jews in exile,35
and the renewal of the covenant after the return from exile.36 It
is significant that in their preaching the prophets link mercy, which they
often refer to because of the people's sins, with the incisive image of love
on God's part. The Lord loves Israel with the love of a special choosing,
much like the love of a spouse,37 and for this reason He pardons its
sins and even its infidelities and betrayals. When He finds repentance and
true conversion, He brings His people back to grace.38 In the preaching of the prophets,
mercy signifies a special power of love, which prevails over the sin and
infidelity of the chosen people. In
this broad "social" context, mercy appears as a correlative to the
interior experience of individuals languishing in a state of guilt or
enduring every kind of suffering and misfortune. Both physical evil and moral
evil, namely sin, cause the sons and daughters of Israel to turn to the Lord
and beseech His mercy. In this way David turns to Him, conscious of the
seriousness of his guilt39; Job too, after his rebellion, turns
to Him in his tremendous misfortune40; so also does Esther, knowing the
mortal threat to her own people.41 And we find still other examples in the
books of the Old Testament.42 At
the root of this many-sided conviction, which is both communal and personal,
and which is demonstrated by the whole of the Old Testament down the
centuries, is the basic experience of the chosen people at the Exodus: the
Lord saw the affliction of His people reduced to slavery, heard their cry,
knew their sufferings and decided to deliver them.43 In this act of salvation by the Lord,
the prophet perceived his love and compassion.44 This is precisely the grounds upon
which the people and each of its members based their certainty of the mercy
of God, which can be invoked whenever tragedy strikes. Added
to this is the fact that sin too constitutes man's misery. The people of the
Old Covenant experienced this misery from the time of the Exodus, when they
set up the golden calf. The Lord Himself triumphed over this act of breaking
the covenant when He solemnly declared to Moses that He was a "God
merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and
faithfulness."45 It is in this central revelation that
the chosen people, and each of its members, will find, every time that they
have sinned, the strength and the motive for turning to the Lord to remind
Him of what He had exactly revealed about Himself46 and to beseech His forgiveness. Thus,
in deeds and in words, the Lord revealed His mercy from the very beginnings
of the people which He chose for Himself; and, in the course of its history,
this people continually entrusted itself, both when stricken with misfortune
and when it became aware of its sin, to the God of mercies. All the
subtleties of love become manifest in the Lord's mercy towards those who are
His own: He is their Father,47 for Israel is His firstborn son48; the Lord is also the bridegroom of
her whose new name the prophet proclaims: Ruhamah,
"Beloved" or "she has obtained pity."49 Even
when the Lord is exasperated by the infidelity of His people and thinks of
finishing with it, it is still His tenderness and generous love for those who
are His own which overcomes His anger.50 Thus it is easy to understand why the
psalmists, when they desire to sing the highest praises of the Lord, break
forth into hymns to the God of love, tenderness, mercy and fidelity.51 From
all this it follows that mercy does not pertain only to the notion of God,
but it is something that characterizes the life of the whole people of Israel
and each of its sons and daughters: mercy is the content of intimacy with
their Lord, the content of their dialogue with Him. Under precisely this
aspect, mercy is presented in the individual books of the Old Testament with
a great richness of expression. It may be difficult to find in these books a
purely theoretical answer to the question of what mercy is in itself. Nevertheless, the terminology that is used is in
itself able to tell us much about this subject.52 The
Old Testament proclaims the mercy of the Lord by the use of many terms with
related meanings; they are differentiated by their particular content, but it
could be said that they all converge from different directions on one single
fundamental content, to express its surpassing richness and at the same time
to bring it close to man under different aspects. The Old Testament
encourages people suffering from misfortune, especially those weighed down by
sin - as also the whole of Israel, which had entered into the covenant with
God - to appeal for mercy, and enables them to count upon it: it reminds them
of His mercy in times of failure and loss of trust. Subsequently, the Old
Testament gives thanks and glory for mercy every time that mercy is made
manifest in the life of the people or in the lives of individuals. In
this way, mercy is in a certain sense contrasted with God's justice, and in
many cases is shown to be not only more powerful than that justice but also
more profound. Even the Old Testament teaches that, although justice is an
authentic virtue in man, and in God signifies
transcendent perfection nevertheless love is "greater" than
justice: greater in the sense that it is primary and fundamental. Love, so to
speak, conditions justice and, in the final analysis, justice serves love.
The primacy and superiority of love vis-a-vis justice - this is a mark of the whole of revelation -
are revealed precisely through mercy. This seemed so obvious to the psalmists
and prophets that the very term justice ended up by meaning the salvation
accomplished by the Lord and His mercy.53 Mercy differs from justice, but is
not in opposition to it, if we admit in the history of man - as the Old
Testament precisely does-the presence of God, who already as Creator has
linked Himself to His creature with a particular love. Love, by its very
nature, excludes hatred and ill - will towards the one to whom He once gave
the gift of Himself: Nihil odisti
eorum quae fecisti,
"you hold nothing of what you have made in abhorrence."54 These words indicate the profound
basis of the relationship between justice and mercy in God, in His relations
with man and the world. They tell us that we must seek the life-giving roots
and intimate reasons for this relationship by going back to "the
beginning," in the very mystery of creation. They foreshadow in the
context of the Old Covenant the full revelation of God, who is
"love."55 Connected
with the mystery of creation is the mystery of the election, which in a
special way shaped the history of the people whose spiritual father is
Abraham by virtue of his faith. Nevertheless, through this people which
journeys forward through the history both of the Old Covenant and of the New, that mystery of election refers to every man and woman,
to the whole great human family. "I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore I have continued my faithfulness to
you."56 "For the mountains may
depart...my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of
peace shall not be removed."57 This truth, once proclaimed to
Israel, involves a perspective of the whole history of man, a perspective
both temporal and eschatological.58 Christ reveals the Father within the
framework of the same perspective and on ground already prepared, as many
pages of the Old Testament writings demonstrate. At the end of this
revelation, on the night before He dies, He says to the apostle Philip these
memorable words: "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know
me...? He who has seen me has seen the Father."59 |
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IV. THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON
5. An Analogy At
the very beginning of the New Testament, two voices resound in St. Luke's
Gospel in unique harmony concerning the mercy of God, a harmony which
forcefully echoes the whole Old Testament tradition. They express the
semantic elements linked to the differentiated terminology of the ancient
books. Mary, entering the house of Zechariah, magnifies the Lord with all her
soul for "his mercy," which "from generation to
generation" is bestowed on those who fear Him. A little later, as she
recalls the election of Israel, she proclaims the mercy which He who has
chosen her holds "in remembrance" from all time.60 Afterwards, in the same house, when
John the Baptist is born, his father Zechariah blesses the God of Israel and
glorifies Him for performing the mercy promised to our fathers and for
remembering His holy covenant.61 In
the teaching of Christ Himself, this image inherited from the Old Testament
becomes at the same time simpler and more profound. This is perhaps most
evident in the parable of the prodigal son.62 Although the word "mercy"
does not appear, it nevertheless expresses the essence of the divine mercy in
a particularly clear way. This is due not so much to the terminology, as in
the Old Testament books, as to the analogy that enables us to understand more
fully the very mystery of mercy, as a profound drama played out between the
father's love and the prodigality and sin of the son. That
son, who receives from the father the portion of the inheritance that is due
to him and leaves home to squander it in a far country "in loose
living," in a certain sense is the man of every period, beginning with
the one who was the first to lose the inheritance of grace and original
justice. The analogy at this point is very wide- ranging. The parable
indirectly touches upon every breach of the covenant of love, every loss of
grace, every sin. In this analogy there is less emphasis than in the
prophetic tradition on the unfaithfulness of the whole people of Israel,
although the analogy of the prodigal son may extend to this also. "When
he had spent everything," the son "began to be in need,"
especially as "a great famine arose in that country" to which he
had gone after leaving his father's house. And in this situation "he
would gladly have fed on" anything, even "the pods that the swine
ate," the swine that he herded for "one of the citizens of that
country." But even this was refused him. The
analogy turns clearly towards man's interior. The inheritance that the son
had received from his father was a quantity of material goods, but more
important than these goods was his dignity as a son in his father's house.
The situation in which he found himself when he lost the material goods
should have made him aware of the loss of that dignity. He had not thought
about it previously, when he had asked his father to give him the part of the
inheritance that was due to him, in order to go away. He seems not to be
conscious of it even now, when he says to himself: "How many of my
father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but I perish here
with hunger." He measures himself by the standard of the goods that he
has lost, that he no longer "possesses," while the hired servants
of his father's house "possess" them. These words express above all
his attitude to material goods; nevertheless under their surface is concealed
the tragedy of lost dignity, the awareness of squandered sonship.
It
is at this point that he makes the decision: "I will arise and go to my
father, and I will say to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and
before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of
your hired servants.'"63 These are words that reveal more
deeply the essential problem. Through the complex material situation in which
the prodigal son found himself because of his folly, because of sin, the
sense of lost dignity had matured. When he decides to return to his father's
house, to ask his father to be received-no longer by virtue of his right as a
son, but as an employee-at first sight he seems to be acting by reason of the
hunger and poverty that he had fallen into; this motive, however, is
permeated by an awareness of a deeper loss: to be a hired servant in his own
father's house is certainly a great humiliation and source of shame.
Nevertheless, the prodigal son is ready to undergo that humiliation and
shame. He realizes that he no longer has any right except to be an employee
in his father's house. His decision is taken in full consciousness of what he
has deserved and of what he can still have a right to in accordance with the
norms of justice. Precisely this reasoning demonstrates that, at the center
of the prodigal son's consciousness, the sense of lost dignity is emerging,
the sense of that dignity that springs from the relationship of the son with
the father. And it is with this decision that he sets out. In
the parable of the prodigal son, the term "justice" is not used
even once; just as in the original text the term "mercy" is not used
either. Nevertheless, the relationship between justice and love,
that is manifested as mercy, is inscribed with great exactness in the
content of the Gospel parable. It becomes more evident that love is
transformed into mercy when it is necessary to go beyond the precise norm of
justice-precise and often too narrow. The prodigal son, having wasted the
property he received from his father, deserves - after his return - to earn
his living by working in his father's house as a hired servant and possibly, little
by little, to build up a certain provision of material goods, though perhaps
never as much as the amount he had squandered. This would be demanded by the
order of justice, especially as the son had not only squandered the part of
the inheritance belonging to him but had also hurt and offended his father by
his whole conduct. Since this conduct had in his own eyes deprived him of his
dignity as a son, it could not be a matter of indifference to his father. It
was bound to make him suffer. It was also bound to implicate him in some way.
And yet, after all, it was his own son who was involved, and such a
relationship could never be altered or destroyed by any sort of behavior. The
prodigal son is aware of this and it is precisely this awareness that shows
him clearly the dignity which he has lost and which makes him honestly
evaluate the position that he could still expect in his father's house. |
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6. Particular Concentration on Human Dignity This
exact picture of the prodigal son's state of mind enables us to understand
exactly what the mercy of God consists in. There is no doubt that in this
simple but penetrating analogy the figure of the father reveals to us God as
Father. The conduct of the father in the parable and his whole behavior,
which manifests his internal attitude, enables us to rediscover the
individual threads of the Old Testament vision of mercy in a synthesis which
is totally new, full of simplicity and depth. The father of the prodigal son
is faithful to his fatherhood, faithful to the love that he had always
lavished on his son. This fidelity is expressed in the parable not only by
his immediate readiness to welcome him home when he returns after having
squandered his inheritance; it is expressed even more fully by that joy, that
merrymaking for the squanderer after his return, merrymaking which is so
generous that it provokes the opposition and hatred of the elder brother, who
had never gone far away from his father and had never abandoned the home. The
father's fidelity to himself - a trait already known by the Old Testament
term hesed - is at the same time expressed in a
manner particularly charged with affection. We read, in fact, that when the
father saw the prodigal son returning home "he had compassion, ran to
meet him, threw his arms around his neck and kissed him."64 He certainly does this under the
influence of a deep affection, and this also explains his generosity towards
his son, that generosity which so angers the elder son. Nevertheless, the
causes of this emotion are to be sought at a deeper level. Notice, the father
is aware that a fundamental good has been saved: the good of his son's
humanity. Although the son has squandered the inheritance, nevertheless his
humanity is saved. Indeed, it has been, in a way, found again. The father's
words to the elder son reveal this: "It was fitting to make merry and be
glad, for this your brother was dead and is alive; he was lost and is
found."65 In the same chapter fifteen of Luke's
Gospel, we read the parable of the sheep that was found66 and then the parable of the coin that
was found.67 Each time there is an emphasis on the
same joy that is present in the case of the prodigal son. The father's
fidelity to himself is totally concentrated upon the humanity of the lost
son, upon his dignity. This explains above all his joyous emotion at the
moment of the son's return home. Going
on, one can therefore say that the love for the son the love that springs
from the very essence of fatherhood, in a way obliges the father to be
concerned about his son's dignity. This concern is the measure of his love,
the love of which Saint Paul was to write: "Love is patient and kind.. .love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable
or resentful...but rejoices in the right...hopes all things, endures all
things" and "love never ends."68 Mercy - as Christ has presented it in
the parable of the prodigal son - has the interior form of the love that in
the New Testament is called agape. This love is able to reach down to every
prodigal son, to every human misery, and above all to
every form of moral misery, to sin. When this happens, the person who is the
object of mercy does not feel humiliated, but rather found again and
"restored to value." The father first and foremost expresses to him
his joy that he has been "found again" and that he has
"returned to life. This joy indicates a good that has remained intact:
even if he is a prodigal, a son does not cease to be truly his father's son;
it also indicates a good that has been found again, which in the case of the
prodigal son was his return to the truth about himself. What
took place in the relationship between the father and the son in Christ's
parable is not to be evaluated "from the outside." Our prejudices
about mercy are mostly the result of appraising them only from the outside.
At times it happens that by following this method of evaluation we see in
mercy above all a relationship of inequality between the one offering it and
the one receiving it. And, in consequence, we are quick to deduce that mercy
belittles the receiver, that it offends the dignity of man. The parable of
the prodigal son shows that the reality is different: the relationship of
mercy is based on the common experience of that good which is man, on the
common experience of the dignity that is proper to him. This common
experience makes the prodigal son begin to see himself and his actions in
their full truth (this vision in truth is a genuine form of humility); on the
other hand, for this very reason he becomes a particular good for his father:
the father sees so clearly the good which has been achieved thanks to a
mysterious radiation of truth and love, that he seems to forget all the evil
which the son had committed. The
parable of the prodigal son expresses in a simple but profound way the reality
of conversion. Conversion is the most concrete expression of the working of
love and of the presence of mercy in the human world. The true and proper
meaning of mercy does not consist only in looking, however penetratingly and
compassionately, at moral, physical or material evil: mercy is manifested in
its true and proper aspect when it restores to value, promotes and draws good from all the forms of evil existing in the world and
in man. Understood in this way, mercy constitutes the fundamental content of
the messianic message of Christ and the constitutive power of His mission.
His disciples and followers understood and practiced mercy in the same way.
Mercy never ceased to reveal itself, in their hearts and in their actions, as
an especially creative proof of the love which does not allow itself to be
"conquered by evil," but overcomes "evil with good."69 The genuine face of mercy has to be
ever revealed anew. In spite of many prejudices, mercy seems particularly
necessary for our times. |
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V. THE PASCHAL MYSTERY 7. Mercy Revealed in the Cross and Resurrection The
messianic message of Christ and His activity among people end with the cross
and resurrection. We have to penetrate deeply into this final event-which
especially in the language of the Council is defined as the Mysterium Paschale - if we wish
to express in depth the truth about mercy, as it has been revealed in depth
in the history of our salvation. At this point of our considerations, we
shall have to draw closer still to the content of the encyclical Redemptor hominis. If, in fact,
the reality of the Redemption, in its human dimension, reveals the unheard -
of greatness of man, qui talem ac tantum meruit habere Redemptorem,70 at the same time the divine dimension
of the redemption enables us, I would say, in the most empirical and
"historical" way, to uncover the depth of that love which does not
recoil before the extraordinary sacrifice of the Son, in order to satisfy the
fidelity of the Creator and Father towards human beings, created in His image
and chosen from "the beginning," in this Son, for grace and glory. The
events of Good Friday and, even before that, in prayer in Gethsemane,
introduce a fundamental change into the whole course of the revelation of
love and mercy in the messianic mission of Christ. The one who "went
about doing good and healing"71 and "curing every sickness and
disease"72 now Himself seems to merit the
greatest mercy and to appeal for mercy, when He is arrested, abused,
condemned, scourged, crowned with thorns, when He is nailed to the cross and
dies amidst agonizing torments.73 It is then that He particularly
deserves mercy from the people to whom He has done good,
and He does not receive it. Even those who are closest to Him cannot protect
Him and snatch Him from the hands of His oppressors. At this final stage of
His messianic activity the words which the prophets, especially Isaiah,
uttered concerning the Servant of Yahweh are fulfilled in Christ:
"Through his stripes we are healed."74 Christ,
as the man who suffers really and in a terrible way in the Garden of Olives
and on Calvary, addresses Himself to the Father- that Father whose love He
has preached to people, to whose mercy He has borne witness through all of
His activity. But He is not spared - not even He-the
terrible suffering of death on the cross: For our sake God made him to be sin
who knew no sin,"75 St. Paul will write, summing up in a
few words the whole depth of the cross and at the same time the divine
dimension of the reality of the Redemption. Indeed this Redemption is the
ultimate and definitive revelation of the holiness of God, who is the
absolute fullness of perfection: fullness of justice and of love, since
justice is based on love, flows from it and tends towards it. In the passion
and death of Christ-in the fact that the Father did not spare His own Son,
but "for our sake made him sin"76 - absolute justice is expressed, for
Christ undergoes the passion and cross because of the sins of humanity. This
constitutes even a "superabundance" of justice, for the sins of man
are "compensated for" by the sacrifice of the Man-God. Nevertheless,
this justice, which is properly justice "to God's measure," springs
completely from love: from the love of the Father and of the Son, and
completely bears fruit in love. Precisely for this reason the divine justice
revealed in the cross of Christ is "to God's measure," because it
springs from love and is accomplished in love, producing fruits of salvation.
The divine dimension of redemption is put into effect not only by bringing
justice to bear upon sin, but also by restoring to love that creative power
in man thanks also which he once more has access to the fullness of life and
holiness that come from God. In this way, redemption involves the revelation
of mercy in its fullness. The
Paschal Mystery is the culmination of this revealing and effecting of mercy,
which is able to justify man, to restore justice in the sense of that
salvific order which God willed from the beginning in man and, through man,
in the world. The suffering Christ speaks in a special way to man, and not
only to the believer. The non-believer also will be able to discover in Him
the eloquence of solidarity with the human lot, as also the harmonious
fullness of a disinterested dedication to the cause of man, to truth and to
love. And yet the divine dimension of the Paschal Mystery goes still deeper.
The cross on Calvary, the cross upon which Christ conducts His final dialogue
with the Father, emerges from the very heart of the love that man, created in
the image and likeness of God, has been given as a gift, according to God's
eternal plan. God, as Christ has revealed Him, does not merely remain closely
linked with the world as the Creator and the ultimate source of existence. He
is also Father: He is linked to man, whom He called to existence in the
visible world, by a bond still more intimate than that of creation. It is
love which not only creates the good but also grants participation in the
very life of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For he who loves desires to
give himself. The
cross of Christ on Calvary stands beside the path of that admirable commercium, of that wonderful self-communication of God
to man, which also includes the call to man to share in the divine life by
giving himself, and with himself the whole visible world, to God, and like an
adopted son to become a sharer in the truth and love which is in God and
proceeds from God. It is precisely beside the path of man's eternal election
to the dignity of being an adopted child of God that there stands in history
the cross of Christ, the only - begotten Son, who, as "light from light,
true God from true God,"77 came to give the final witness to the
wonderful covenant of God with humanity, of God with man - every human being
This covenant, as old as man - it goes back to the very mystery of creation -
and afterwards many times renewed with one single chosen people, is equally
the new and definitive covenant, which was established there on Calvary, and
is not limited to a single people, to Israel, but is open to each and every
individual. What
else, then, does the cross of Christ say to us, the cross that in a sense is
the final word of His messianic message and mission? And yet this is not yet
the word of the God of the covenant: that will be pronounced at the dawn when
first the women and then the Apostles come to the tomb of the crucified
Christ, see the tomb empty and for the first time hear the message: "He
is risen." They will repeat this message to the
others and will be witnesses to the risen Christ. Yet, even in this
glorification of the Son of God, the cross remains, that cross which-through
all the messianic testimony of the Man the Son, who suffered death upon it - speaks
and never ceases to speak of God the Father, who is absolutely faithful to
His eternal love for man, since He "so loved the world" - therefore
man in the world-that "he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in
him should not perish but have eternal life."78 Believing in the crucified Son means
"seeing the Father,"79 means believing that love is present
in the world and that this love is more powerful than any kind of evil in
which individuals, humanity, or the world are involved. Believing in this
love means believing in mercy. For mercy is an indispensable dimension of
love; it is as it were love's second name and, at the same time, the specific
manner in which love is revealed and effected vis-a-vis the reality of the evil that is in the world,
affecting and besieging man, insinuating itself even into his heart and
capable of causing him to "perish in Gehenna."80 |
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8. Love More Powerful Than Death, More Powerful Than Sin The
cross of Christ on Calvary is also a witness to the strength of evil against
the very Son of God, against the one who, alone among all the sons of men,
was by His nature absolutely innocent and free from sin, and whose coming
into the world was untainted by the disobedience of Adam and the inheritance
of original sin. And here, precisely in Him, in Christ, justice is done to
sin at the price of His sacrifice, of His obedience "even to
death."81 He who was without sin, "God
made him sin for our sake."82 Justice is also brought to bear upon
death, which from the beginning of man's history had been allied to sin. Death
has justice done to it at the price of the death of the one who was without
sin and who alone was able-by means of his own death-to inflict death upon
death.83 In this way the cross of Christ, on
which the Son, consubstantial with the Father, renders full justice to God,
is also a radical revelation of mercy, or rather of the love that goes
against what constitutes the very root of evil in the history of man: against
sin and death. The
cross is the most profound condescension of God to man and to what
man-especially in difficult and painful moments-looks on as his unhappy
destiny. The cross is like a touch of eternal love upon the most painful
wounds of man's earthly existence; it is the total fulfillment of the
messianic program that Christ once formulated in the synagogue at Nazareth 84 and then repeated to the messengers
sent by John the Baptist.85 According to the words once written
in the prophecy of Isaiah,86 this program consisted in the
revelation of merciful love for the poor, the suffering and prisoners, for
the blind, the oppressed and sinners. In the paschal mystery the limits of
the many sided evil in which man becomes a sharer during his earthly
existence are surpassed: the cross of Christ, in fact, makes us understand
the deepest roots of evil, which are fixed in sin and death; thus the cross
becomes an eschatological sign. Only in the eschatological fulfillment and
definitive renewal of the world will love conquer, in all the elect, the
deepest sources of evil, bringing as its fully mature fruit the kingdom of
life and holiness and glorious immortality. The foundation of this
eschatological fulfillment is already contained in the cross of Christ and in
His death. The fact that Christ "was raised the third day"87 constitutes the final sign of the
messianic mission, a sign that perfects the entire revelation of merciful
love in a world that is subject to evil. At the same time it constitutes the
sign that foretells "a new heaven and a new earth,"88 when God "will wipe away every
tear from their eyes, there will be no more death, or mourning no crying, nor
pain, for the former things have passed away."89 In
the eschatological fulfillment mercy will be revealed as love, while in the
temporal phase, in human history, which is at the same time the history of
sin and death, love must be revealed above all as mercy and must also be
actualized as mercy. Christ's messianic program, the program of mercy,
becomes the program of His people, the program of the Church. At its very
center there is always the cross, for it is in the cross that the revelation
of merciful love attains its culmination. Until "the former things pass
away,"90 the cross will remain the point of
reference for other words too of the Revelation of John: "Behold, I
stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I
will come in and eat with him and he with me."91 In a special way, God also reveals
His mercy when He invites man to have "mercy" on His only Son, the
crucified one. Christ,
precisely as the crucified one, is the Word that does not pass away,92 and He is the one who stands at the
door and knocks at the heart of every man,93 without restricting his freedom, but
instead seeking to draw from this very freedom love, which is not only an act
of solidarity with the suffering Son of man, but also a kind of
"mercy" shown by each one of us to the Son of the eternal Father.
In the whole of this messianic program of Christ, in the whole revelation of
mercy through the cross, could man's dignity be more highly respected and
ennobled, for, in obtaining mercy, He is in a sense the one who at the same
time "shows mercy"? In a word, is not this the position of Christ
with regard to man when He says: "As you did it to one of the least of
these...you did it to me"?94 Do not the words of the Sermon on the
Mount: "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy,"95 constitute, in a certain sense, a
synthesis of the whole of the Good News, of the whole of the "wonderful
exchange" (admirable commercium) contained
therein? This exchange is a law of the very plan of salvation, a law which is
simple, strong and at the same time "easy." Demonstrating from the
very start what the "human heart" is capable of ("to be
merciful"), do not these words from the Sermon on the Mount reveal in
the same perspective the deep mystery of God: that inscrutable unity of
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in which love, containing justice, sets in
motion mercy, which in its turn reveals the perfection of justice? The
Paschal Mystery is Christ at the summit of the revelation of the inscrutable
mystery of God. It is precisely then that the words pronounced in the Upper
Room are completely fulfilled: "He who has seen me has seen the
Father."96 In fact, Christ, whom the Father
"did not spare"97 for the sake of man and who in His
passion and in the torment of the cross did not obtain human mercy, has
revealed in His resurrection the fullness of the love that the Father has for
Him and, in Him, for all people. "He is not God of the dead, but of the
living."98 In His resurrection Christ has
revealed the God of merciful love, precisely because He accepted the cross as
the way to the resurrection. And it is for this reason that-when we recall
the cross of Christ, His passion and death-our faith and hope are centered on
the Risen One: on that Christ who "on the evening of that day, the first
day of the week, . . .stood among them" in the
upper Room, "where the disciples were, ...breathed on them, and said to
them: 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are
forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.'"99 Here
is the Son of God, who in His resurrection experienced in a radical way mercy
shown to Himself, that is to say the love of the Father which is more
powerful than death. And it is also the same Christ, the Son of God, who at
the end of His messianic mission - and, in a certain sense, even beyond the
end - reveals Himself as the inexhaustible source of mercy, of the same love
that, in a subsequent perspective of the history of salvation in the Church,
is to be everlastingly confirmed as more powerful than sin. The paschal
Christ is the definitive incarnation of mercy, its living sign in salvation
history and in eschatology. In the same spirit, the liturgy of Eastertide
places on our lips the words of the Psalm: Misericordias
Domini in aeternum cantabo.100 |
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9. Mother of Mercy These
words of the Church at Easter re-echo in the fullness of their prophetic
content the words that Mary uttered during her visit to Elizabeth, the wife
of Zechariah: "His mercy is...from generation to generation."101 At the very moment of the
Incarnation, these words open up a new perspective of salvation history.
After the resurrection of Christ, this perspective is new on both the
historical and the eschatological level. From that time onwards there is a
succession of new generations of individuals in the immense human family, in
ever-increasing dimensions; there is also a succession of new generations of
the People of God, marked with the Sign of the Cross and of the resurrection
and "sealed"102 with the sign of the Paschal Mystery
of Christ, the absolute revelation of the mercy that Mary proclaimed on the
threshold of her kinswoman's house: "His mercy is...from generation to
generation."103 Mary
is also the one who obtained mercy in a particular and exceptional way, as no
other person has. At the same time, still in an exceptional way, she made
possible with the sacrifice of her heart her own sharing in revealing God's
mercy. This sacrifice is intimately linked with the cross of her Son, at the
foot of which she was to stand on Calvary. Her sacrifice is a unique sharing
in the revelation of mercy, that is, a sharing in the absolute fidelity of
God to His own love, to the covenant that He willed from eternity and that He
entered into in time with man, with the people, with humanity; it is a
sharing in that revelation that was definitively fulfilled through the cross.
No one has experienced, to the same degree as the Mother of the crucified
One, the mystery of the cross, the overwhelming encounter of divine
transcendent justice with love: that "kiss" given by mercy to
justice.104 No one has received into his heart,
as much as Mary did, that mystery, that truly divine dimension of the
redemption effected on Calvary by means of the death of the Son, together
with the sacrifice of her maternal heart, together with her definitive
"fiat." Mary,
then, is the one who has the deepest knowledge of the mystery of God's mercy.
She knows its price, she knows how great it is. In
this sense, we call her the Mother of mercy: our Lady of mercy, or Mother of
divine mercy; in each one of these titles there is a deep theological
meaning, for they express the special preparation of her soul, of her whole
personality, so that she was able to perceive, through the complex events,
first of Israel, then of every individual and of the whole of humanity, that
mercy of which "from generation to generation"105 people become sharers according to
the eternal design of the most Holy Trinity. The
above titles which we attribute to the Mother of God speak of her
principally, however, as the Mother of the crucified and risen One; as the
One who, having obtained mercy in an exceptional way, in an equally
exceptional way "merits" that mercy throughout her earthly life
and, particularly, at the foot of the cross of her Son; and finally as the
one who, through her hidden and at the same time incomparable sharing in the
messianic mission of her Son, was called in a special way to bring close to
people that love which He had come to reveal: the love that finds its most
concrete expression vis-a-vis
the suffering, the poor, those deprived of their own freedom, the blind, the
oppressed and sinners, just as Christ spoke of them in the words of the
prophecy of Isaiah, first in the synagogue at Nazareth106 and then in response to the question
of the messengers of John the Baptist.107 It
was precisely this "merciful" love, which is manifested above all
in contact with moral and physical evil, that the heart of her who was the
Mother of the crucified and risen One shared in singularly and exceptionally
- that Mary shared in. In her and through her, this love continues to be
revealed in the history of the Church and of humanity. This revelation is
especially fruitful because in the Mother of God it is based upon the unique
tact of her maternal heart, on her particular sensitivity, on her particular
fitness to reach all those who most easily accept the merciful love of a
mother. This is one of the great life-giving mysteries of Christianity, a
mystery intimately connected with the mystery of the Incarnation. "The
motherhood of Mary in the order of grace," as the Second Vatican Council
explains, "lasts without interruption from the consent which she
faithfully gave at the annunciation and which she sustained without
hesitation under the cross, until the eternal fulfillment of all the elect. In
fact, being assumed into heaven she has not laid aside this office of
salvation but by her manifold intercession she continues to obtain for us the
graces of eternal salvation. By her maternal charity, she takes care of the
brethren of her Son who still journey on earth surrounded by dangers and
difficulties, until they are led into their blessed home."108 |
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VI. "MERCY...FROM GENERATION
TO GENERATION" 10. An Image of Our Generation We
have every right to believe that our generation too was included in the words
of the Mother of God when she glorified that mercy shared in "from
generation to generation" by those who allow themselves to be guided by
the fear of God. The words of Mary's Magnificat
have a prophetic content that concerns not only the past of Israel but also
the whole future of the People of God on earth. In fact, all of us now living
on earth are the generation that is aware of the approach of the third
millennium and that profoundly feels the change that is occurring in history.
The
present generation knows that it is in a privileged position: progress
provides it with countless possibilities that only a few decades ago were
undreamed of. Man's creative activity, his intelligence and his work, have
brought about profound changes both in the field of science and technology
and in that of social and cultural life. Man has extended his power over
nature and has acquired deeper knowledge of the laws of social behavior. He
has seen the obstacles and distances between individuals and nations dissolve
or shrink through an increased sense of what is universal, through a clearer
awareness of the unity of the human race, through the acceptance of mutual
dependence in authentic solidarity, and through the desire and possibility of
making contact with one's brothers and sisters beyond artificial geographical
divisions and national or racial limits. Today's young people, especially,
know that the progress of science and technology can produce not only new
material goods but also a wider sharing in knowledge. The extraordinary
progress made in the field of information and data processing, for instance,
will increase man's creative capacity and provide access to the intellectual
and cultural riches of other peoples. New communications techniques will
encourage greater participation in events and a wider exchange of ideas. The
achievements of biological, psychological and social science will help man to
understand better the riches of his own being. It is true that too often this
progress is still the privilege of the industrialized countries, but it
cannot be denied that the prospect of enabling every people and every country
to benefit from it has long ceased to be a mere utopia when there is a real
political desire for it. But
side by side with all this, or rather as part of it, there are also the
difficulties that appear whenever there is growth. There is unease and a sense
of powerlessness regarding the profound response that man knows that he must
give. The picture of the world today also contains shadows and imbalances
that are not always merely superficial. The Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et spes of the Second
Vatican Council is certainly not the only document that deals with the life
of this generation, but it is a document of particular importance. "The
dichotomy affecting the modern world," we read in it, "is,,in fact, a symptom of a
deeper dichotomy that is in man himself. He is the meeting point of many
conflicting forces. In his condition as a created being he is subject to a
thousand shortcomings, but feels untrammelled in his inclinations and
destined for a higher form of life. Torn by a welter of anxieties he is
compelled to choose between them and repudiate some among them. Worse still,
feeble and sinful as he is, he often does the very thing he hates and does
not do what he wants. And so he feels himself divided, and the result is a
host of discords in social life."109 Towards
the end of the introductory exposition we read: ". . .in the face of
modern developments there is a growing body of men who are asking the most
fundamental of all questions or are glimpsing them with a keener insight:
What is man? What is the meaning of suffering, evil, death, which have not been eliminated by all this progress? What is the
purpose of these achievements, purchased at so high a price?"110 In
the span of the fifteen years since the end of the Second Vatican Council,
has this picture of tensions and threats that mark our epoch become less
disquieting? It seems not. On the contrary, the tensions and threats that in
the Council document seem only to be outlined and not to manifest in depth
all the dangers hidden within them have revealed themselves more clearly in
the space of these years; they have in a different way confirmed that danger,
and do not permit us to cherish the illusions of the past. |
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11. Sources of Uneasiness Thus,
in our world the feeling of being under threat is increasing. There is an
increase of that existential fear connected especially, as I said in the
encyclical Redemptor hominis,
with the prospect of a conflict that in view of today's atomic stockpiles
could mean the partial self-destruction of humanity. But the threat does not
merely concern what human beings can do to human beings through the means
provided by military technology; it also concerns many other dangers produced
by a materialistic society which-in spite of "humanistic"
declarations-accepts the primacy of things over persons. Contemporary man,
therefore, fears that by the use of the means invented by this type of
society, individuals and the environment, communities, societies and nations
can fall victim to the abuse of power by other individuals, environments and
societies. The history of our century offers many examples of this. In spite
of all the declarations on the rights of man in his integral dimension, that is to say in his bodily and spiritual existence,
we cannot say that these examples belong only to the past. Man
rightly fears falling victim to an oppression that will deprive him of his
interior freedom, of the possibility of expressing the truth of which he is convinced,
of the faith that he professes, of the ability to obey the voice of
conscience that tells him the right path to follow. The technical means at
the disposal of modern society conceal within themselves not only the
possibility of self-destruction through military conflict, but also the
possibility of a "peaceful" subjugation of individuals, of
environments, of entire societies and of nations, that for one reason or
another might prove inconvenient for those who possess the necessary means
and are ready to use them without scruple. An instance is the continued
existence of torture, systematically used by authority as a means of
domination and political oppression and practiced by subordinates with
impunity. Together
with awareness of the biological threat, therefore, there is a growing
awareness of yet another threat, even more
destructive of what is essentially human, what is intimately bound up with
the dignity of the person and his or her right to truth and freedom. All
this is happening against the background of the gigantic remorse caused by
the fact that, side by side with wealthy and surfeited people and societies,
living in plenty and ruled by consumerism and pleasure, the same human family
contains individuals and groups that are suffering from hunger. There are
babies dying of hunger under their mothers' eyes. In various parts of the
world, in various socio-economic systems, there exist entire areas of
poverty, shortage and underdevelopment. This fact is universally known. The
state of inequality between individuals and between nations not only still
exists; it is increasing. It still happens that side by side with those who
are wealthy and living in plenty there exist those who are living in want,
suffering misery and often actually dying of hunger; and their number reaches
tens, even hundreds of millions. This is why moral uneasiness is destined to
become even more acute. It is obvious that a fundamental defect, or rather a
series of defects, indeed a defective machinery is
at the root of contemporary economics and materialistic civilization, which
does not allow the human family to break free from such radically unjust
situations. This
picture of today's world in which there is so much evil both physical and
moral, so as to make of it a world entangled in contradictions and tensions,
and at the same time full of threats to human freedom, conscience and
religion-this picture explains the uneasiness felt by contemporary man. This
uneasiness is experienced not only by those who are disadvantaged or
oppressed, but also by those who possess the privileges of wealth, progress
and power. And, although there is no lack of people trying to understand the
causes of this uneasiness, or trying to react against it with the temporary
means offered by technology, wealth or power, still in the very depth of the
human spirit this uneasiness is stronger than all temporary means. This
uneasiness concerns-as the analyses of the Second Vatican Council rightly
pointed out-the fundamental problems of all human existence. It is linked
with the very sense of man's existence in the world, and is an uneasiness for the future of man and all humanity; it
demands decisive solutions, which now seem to be forcing themselves upon the
human race. |
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12. Is Justice Enough? It
is not difficult to see that in the modern world the sense of justice has
been reawakening on a vast scale; and without doubt this emphasizes that
which goes against justice in relationships between individuals, social
groups and "classes," between individual peoples and states, and
finally between whole political systems, indeed between what are called "worlds." This deep and varied trend,
at the basis of which the contemporary human conscience has placed justice,
gives proof of the ethical character of the tensions and struggles pervading
the world. The
Church shares with the people of our time this
profound and ardent desire for a life which is just in every aspect, nor does
she fail to examine the various aspects of the sort of justice that the life
of people and society demands. This is confirmed by the field of Catholic
social doctrine, greatly developed in the course of the last century. On the
lines of this teaching proceed the education and formation of human
consciences in the spirit of justice, and also individual undertakings,
especially in the sphere of the apostolate of the laity, which are developing
in precisely this spirit. And
yet, it would be difficult not to notice that very often programs which start
from the idea of justice and which ought to assist its fulfillment among
individuals, groups and human societies, in practice suffer from distortions.
Although they continue to appeal to the idea of justice, nevertheless
experience shows that other negative forces have gained the upper hand over
justice, such as spite, hatred and even cruelty. In such cases, the desire to
annihilate the enemy, limit his freedom, or even force him into total
dependence, becomes the fundamental motive for action; and this contrasts
with the essence of justice, which by its nature tends to establish equality
and harmony between the parties in conflict. This kind of abuse of the idea
of justice and the practical distortion of it show how far human action can
deviate from justice itself, even when it is being undertaken in the name of
justice. Not in vain did Christ challenge His listeners, faithful to the
doctrine of the Old Testament, for their attitude which was manifested in the
words: An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."111 This was the form of distortion of
justice at that time; and today's forms continue to be modeled on it. It is
obvious, in fact, that in the name of an alleged justice (for example,
historical justice or class justice) the neighbor is sometimes destroyed,
killed, deprived of liberty or stripped of fundamental human rights. The
experience of the past and of our own time demonstrates that justice alone is
not enough, that it can even lead to the negation and destruction of itself,
if that deeper power, which is love, is not allowed to shape human life in
its various dimensions. It has been precisely historical experience that,
among other things, has led to the formulation of the saying: summum ius, summa iniuria. This statement does not detract from the value
of justice and does not minimize the significance of the order that is based
upon it; it only indicates, under another aspect, the need to draw from the
powers of the spirit which condition the very order of justice, powers which
are still more profound. The
Church, having before her eyes the picture of the generation to which we
belong, shares the uneasiness of so many of the people of our time. Moreover,
one cannot fail to be worried by the decline of many fundamental values,
which constitute an unquestionable good not only for Christian morality but
simply for human morality, for moral culture: these values include respect
for human life from the moment of conception, respect for marriage in its
indissoluble unity, and respect for the stability of the family. Moral
permissiveness strikes especially at this most sensitive sphere of life and
society. Hand in hand with this go the crisis of truth in human
relationships, lack of responsibility for what one says, the purely
utilitarian relationship between individual and individual, the loss of a
sense of the authentic common good and the ease with which this good is
alienated. Finally, there is the "desacralization"
that often turns into "dehumanization": the individual and the
society for whom nothing is "sacred" suffer moral decay, in spite
of appearances. |
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VII. THE MERCY OF GOD IN THE
MISSION OF THE CHURCH In
connection with this picture of our generation, a picture which cannot fail
to cause profound anxiety, there come to mind once more those words which, by
reason of the Incarnation of the Son of God, resounded in Mary's Magnificat, and which sing of "mercy from generation
to generation." The Church of our time, constantly pondering the
eloquence of these inspired words, and applying them to the sufferings of the
great human family, must become more particularly and profoundly conscious of
the need to bear witness in her whole mission to God's mercy, following in
the footsteps of the tradition of the Old and the New Covenant, and above all
of Jesus Christ Himself and His Apostles. The Church must bear witness to the
mercy of God revealed in Christ, in the whole of His mission as Messiah,
professing it in the first place as a salvific truth of faith and as
necessary for a life in harmony with faith, and then seeking to introduce it
and to make it incarnate in the lives both of her faithful and as far as possible
in the lives of all people of good will. Finally, the Church-professing mercy
and remaining always faithful to it-has the right and the duty to call upon
the mercy of God, imploring it in the face of all the manifestations of
physical and moral evil, before all the threats that cloud the whole horizon
of the life of humanity today. |
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13. The Church Professes the Mercy of God and Proclaims It The
Church must profess and proclaim God's mercy in all its truth, as it has been
handed down to us by revelation. We have sought, in the foregoing pages of
the present document, to give at least an outline of this truth, which finds
such rich expression in the whole of Sacred Scripture and in Sacred
Tradition. In the daily life of the Church the truth about the mercy of God,
expressed in the Bible, resounds as a perennial echo through the many
readings of the Sacred Liturgy. The authentic sense of faith of the People of
God perceives this truth, as is shown by various expressions of personal and
community piety. It would of course be difficult to give a list or summary of
them all, since most of them are vividly inscribed in the depths of people's
hearts and minds. Some theologians affirm that mercy is the greatest of the
attributes and perfections of God, and the Bible, Tradition and the whole
faith life of the People of God provide particular proofs of this. It is not
a question here of the perfection of the inscrutable essence of God in the
mystery of the divinity itself, but of the perfection and attribute whereby
man, in the intimate truth of his existence, encounters the living God
particularly closely and particularly often. In harmony with Christ's words
to Philip,112 the "vision of the
Father"-a vision of God through faith finds precisely in the encounter
with His mercy a unique moment of interior simplicity and truth, similar to
that which we discover in the parable of the prodigal son. "He
who has seen me has seen the Father."113 The Church professes the mercy of
God, the Church lives by it in her wide experience of faith and also in her
teaching, constantly contemplating Christ, concentrating on Him, on His life
and on His Gospel, on His cross and resurrection, on His whole mystery.
Everything that forms the "vision" of Christ in the Church's living
faith and teaching brings us nearer to the "vision of the Father"
in the holiness of His mercy. The Church seems in a particular way to profess
the mercy of God and to venerate it when she directs herself to the Heart of
Christ. In fact, it is precisely this drawing close to Christ in the mystery
of His Heart which enables us to dwell on this point-a point in a sense
central and also most accessible on the human level-of the revelation of the
merciful love of the Father, a revelation which constituted the central
content of the messianic mission of the Son of Man. The
Church lives an authentic life when she professes and proclaims mercy-the
most stupendous attribute of the Creator and of the Redeemer-and when she
brings people close to the sources of the Savior's mercy, of which she is the
trustee and dispenser. Of great significance in this area is constant
meditation on the Word of God, and above all conscious and mature
participation in the Eucharist and in the sacrament of Penance or
Reconciliation. The Eucharist brings us ever nearer to that love which is
more powerful than death: "For as often as we eat this bread and drink
this cup," we proclaim not only the death of the Redeemer but also His
resurrection, "until he comes" in glory.114 The same Eucharistic rite,
celebrated in memory of Him who in His messianic mission revealed the Father
to us by means of His words and His cross, attests to the inexhaustible love
by virtue of which He desires always to be united with us and present in our
midst, coming to meet every human heart. It is the sacrament of Penance or
Reconciliation that prepares the way for each individual, even those weighed
down with great faults. In this sacrament each person can experience mercy in
a unique way, that is, the love which is more powerful than sin. This has
already been spoken of in the encyclical Redemptor hominis; but it will be fitting to return once more to
this fundamental theme. It
is precisely because sin exists in the world, which "God so loved...that
he gave his only Son,"115 that God, who "is love,"116 cannot reveal Himself otherwise than
as mercy. This corresponds not only to the most profound truth of that love
which God is, but also to the whole interior truth of man and of the world
which is man's temporary homeland. Mercy
in itself, as a perfection of the infinite God, is also infinite. Also
infinite therefore and inexhaustible is the Father's readiness to receive the
prodigal children who return to His home. Infinite are the readiness and
power of forgiveness which flow continually from the marvelous value of the
sacrifice of the Son. No human sin can prevail over this power or even limit
it. On the part of man only a lack of good will can limit it, a lack of
readiness to be converted and to repent, in other words persistence in
obstinacy, opposing grace and truth, especially in the face of the witness of
the cross and resurrection of Christ. Therefore,
the Church professes and proclaims conversion. Conversion to God always
consists in discovering His mercy, that is, in discovering that love which is
patient and kind117 as only the Creator and Father can
be; the love to which the "God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ"118 is faithful to the uttermost
consequences in the history of His covenant with man; even to the cross and
to the death and resurrection of the Son. Conversion to God is always the
fruit of the"rediscovery of this Father, who
is rich in mercy. Authentic
knowledge of the God of mercy, the God of tender love, is a constant and
inexhaustible source of conversion, not only as a momentary interior act but
also as a permanent attitude, as a state of mind. Those who come to know God
in this way, who "see" Him in this way,
can live only in a state of being continually converted to Him. They live,
therefore, in statu conversionis;
and it is this state of conversion which marks out the most profound element
of the pilgrimage of every man and woman on earth in statu
viatoris. It is obvious that the Church professes
the mercy of God, revealed in the crucified and risen Christ, not only by the
word of her teaching but above all through the deepest pulsation of the life
of the whole People of God. By means of this testimony of life, the Church
fulfills the mission proper to the People of God, the mission which is a sharing
in and, in a sense, a continuation of the messianic mission of Christ
Himself. The
contemporary Church is profoundly conscious that only on the basis of the
mercy of God will she be able to carry out the tasks that derive from the
teaching of the Second Vatican Council, and, in the first place, the
ecumenical task which aims at uniting all those who confess Christ. As she
makes many efforts in this direction, the Church confesses with humility that
only that love which is more powerful than the weakness of human divisions
can definitively bring about that unity which Christ implored from the Father
and which the Spirit never ceases to beseech for us "with sighs too deep
for words."119 |
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14. The Church Seeks To Put Mercy into Practice Jesus
Christ taught that man not only receives and experiences the mercy of God,
but that he is also called "to practice mercy" towards others:
"Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy."120 The Church sees in these words a
call to action, and she tries to practice mercy. All the beatitudes of the
Sermon on the Mount indicate the way of conversion and of reform of life, but
the one referring to those who are merciful is particularly eloquent in this
regard. Man attains to the merciful love of God, His mercy, to the extent
that he himself is interiorly transformed in the spirit of that love towards
his neighbor. This
authentically evangelical process is not just a spiritual transformation
realized once and for all: it is a whole lifestyle, an essential and
continuous characteristic of the Christian vocation. It consists in the
constant discovery and persevering practice of love as a unifying and also
elevating power despite all difficulties of a psychological or social nature:
it is a question, in fact, of a merciful love which, by its essence, is a
creative love. In reciprocal relationships between persons merciful love is
never a unilateral act or process. Even in the cases in which everything
would seem to indicate that only one party is giving and offering, and the
other only receiving and taking (for example, in the case of a physician
giving treatment, a teacher teaching, parents supporting and bringing up
their children, a benefactor helping the needy), in reality the one who gives
is always also a beneficiary. In any case, he too can easily find himself in
the position of the one who receives, who obtains a benefit, who experiences
merciful love; he too can find himself the object of mercy. In
this sense Christ crucified is for us the loftiest model, inspiration and
encouragement. When we base ourselves on this disquieting model, we are able
with all humility to show mercy to others, knowing that Christ accepts it as
if it were shown to Himself.121 On the basis of this model, we must
also continually purify all our actions and all our intentions in which mercy
is understood and practiced in a unilateral way, as a good done to others. An
act of merciful love is only really such when we are deeply convinced at the
moment that we perform it that we are at the same time receiving mercy from
the people who are accepting it from us. If this bilateral and reciprocal
quality is absent, our actions are not yet true acts of mercy, nor has there
yet been fully completed in us that conversion to which Christ has shown us
the way by His words and example, even to the cross, nor are we yet sharing
fully in the magnificent source of merciful love that has been revealed to us
by Him. Thus,
the way which Christ showed to us in the Sermon on the Mount with the
beatitude regarding those who are merciful is much richer than what we sometimes
find in ordinary human opinions about mercy. These opinions see mercy as a
unilateral act or process, presupposing and maintaining a certain distance
between the one practicing mercy and the one benefitting from it, between the
one who does good and the one who receives it. Hence
the attempt to free interpersonal and social relationships from mercy and to
base them solely on justice. However, such opinions about mercy fail to see
the fundamental link between mercy and justice spoken of by the whole biblical
tradition, and above all by the messianic mission of Jesus Christ. True mercy
is, so to speak, the most profound source of justice. If justice is in itself
suitable for "arbitration" between people concerning the reciprocal
distribution of objective goods in an equitable manner, love and only love
(including that kindly love that we call "mercy") is capable of
restoring man to Himself. Mercy
that is truly Christian is also, in a certain sense, the most perfect
incarnation of "equality" between people, and therefore also the
most perfect incarnation of justice as well, insofar as justice aims at the
same result in its own sphere. However, the equality brought by justice is
limited to the realm of objective and extrinsic goods, while love and mercy bring
it about that people meet one another in that value which is man himself,
with the dignity that is proper to him. At the same time,
"equality" of people through "patient and kind" love122 does not take away differences: the
person who gives becomes more generous when he feels at the same time
benefitted by the person accepting his gift; and vice versa, the person who
accepts the gift with the awareness that, in accepting it, he too is doing
good is in his own way serving the great cause of the dignity of the person;
and this contributes to uniting people in a more profound manner. Thus,
mercy becomes an indispensable element for shaping mutual relationships
between people, in a spirit of deepest respect for what is human, and in a
spirit of mutual brotherhood. It is impossible to establish this bond between
people, if they wish to regulate their mutual relationships solely according
to the measure of justice. In every sphere of interpersonal relationships
justice must, so to speak, be "corrected " to a considerable extent
by that love which, as St. Paul proclaims, "is patient and kind"
or, in other words, possesses the characteristics of that merciful love which
is so much of the essence of the Gospel and Christianity. Let us remember,
furthermore, that merciful love also means the cordial tenderness and
sensitivity so eloquently spoken of in the parable of the prodigal son,123 and also in the parables of the lost
sheep and the lost coin.124 Consequently, merciful love is
supremely indispensable between those who are closest to one another: between
husbands and wives, between parents and children, between friends; and it is
indispensable in education and in pastoral work. Its
sphere of action, however, is not limited to this. If Paul VI more than once
indicated the civilization of love"125 as the goal towards which all
efforts in the cultural and social fields as well as in the economic and
political fields should tend. it must be added that this good will never be
reached if in our thinking and acting concerning the vast and complex spheres
of human society we stop at the criterion of "an eye for an eye, a tooth
for a tooth"126 and do not try to transform it in
its essence, by complementing it with another spirit. Certainly, the Second
Vatican Council also leads us in this direction, when it speaks repeatedly of
the need to make the world more human,127 and says that the realization of
this task is precisely the mission of the Church in the modern world. Society
can become ever more human only if we introduce into the many-sided setting
of interpersonal and social relationships, not merely justice, but also that
"merciful love" which constitutes the messianic message of the
Gospel. Society
can become "ever more human" only when we introduce into all the
mutual relationships which form its moral aspect the moment of forgiveness,
which is so much of the essence of the Gospel. Forgiveness demonstrates the
presence in the world of the love which is more powerful than sin.
Forgiveness is also the fundamental condition for reconciliation, not only in
the relationship of God with man, but also in relationships between people. A
world from which forgiveness was eliminated would be nothing but a world of
cold and unfeeling justice, in the name of which each person would claim his
or her own rights vis-a- vis
others; the various kinds of selfishness latent in man would transform life
and human society into a system of oppression of the weak by the strong, or
into an arena of permanent strife between one group and another. For
this reason, the Church must consider it one of her principal duties-at every
stage of history and especially in our modern age-to proclaim and to
introduce into life the mystery of mercy, supremely revealed in Jesus Christ.
Not only for the Church herself as the community of believers but also in a
certain sense for all humanity, this mystery is the source of a life
different from the life which can be built by man, who is exposed to the
oppressive forces of the threefold concupiscence active within him.128 It is precisely in the name of this
mystery that Christ teaches us to forgive always. How often we repeat the
words of the prayer which He Himself taught us, asking "forgive us our
trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us," which means
those who are guilty of something in our regard129 It is indeed difficult to express
the profound value of the attitude which these words describe and inculcate.
How many things these words say to every individual about others and also
about himself. The consciousness of being trespassers against each other goes
hand in hand with the call to fraternal solidarity, which St. Paul expressed
in his concise exhortation to "forbear one another in love."130 What a lesson of humility is to be
found here with regard to man, with regard both to one's neighbor and to
oneself What a school of good will for daily living, in the various
conditions of our existence If we were to ignore this lesson, what would
remain of any "humanist" program of life and education? Christ
emphasizes so insistently the need to forgive others that when Peter asked
Him how many times he should forgive his neighbor He answered with the
symbolic number of "seventy times seven,"131 meaning that he must be able to
forgive everyone every time. It is obvious that such a generous requirement
of forgiveness does not cancel out the objective requirements of justice.
Properly understood, justice constitutes, so to speak, the goal of
forgiveness. In no passage of the Gospel message does forgiveness, or mercy
as its source, mean indulgence towards evil, towards scandals, towards injury
or insult. In any case, reparation for evil and scandal, compensation for
injury, and satisfaction for insult are conditions for forgiveness. Thus
the fundamental structure of justice always enters into the sphere of mercy.
Mercy, however, has the power to confer on justice a new content, which is
expressed most simply and fully in forgiveness. Forgiveness, in fact, shows
that, over and above the process of "compensation" and
"truce" which is specific to justice, love is necessary, so that
man may affirm himself as man. Fulfillment of the conditions of justice is
especially indispensable in order that love may reveal its own nature. In
analyzing the parable of the prodigal son, we have already called attention
to the fact that he who forgives and he who is forgiven encounter one another
at an essential point, namely the dignity or essential value of the person, a
point which cannot be lost and the affirmation of which, or its rediscovery,
is a source of the greatest joy.132 The
Church rightly considers it her duty and the purpose of her mission to guard
the authenticity of forgiveness, both in life and behavior and in educational
and pastoral work. She protects it simply by guarding its source, which is
the mystery of the mercy of God Himself as revealed in Jesus Christ. The
basis of the Church's mission, in all the spheres spoken of in the numerous
pronouncements of the most recent Council and in the centuries-old experience
of the apostolate, is none other than "drawing from the wells of the
Savior"133 this is what provides many
guidelines for the mission of the Church in the lives of individual
Christians, of individual communities, and also of the whole People of God.
This "drawing from the wells of the Savior" can be done only in the
spirit of that poverty to which we are called by the words and example of the
Lord: "You received without pay, give without pay."134 Thus, in all the ways of the
Church's life and ministry-through the evangelical poverty of her-ministers
and stewards and of the whole people which bears witness to "the mighty
works" of its Lord-the God who is "rich in mercy" has been
made still more clearly manifest. |
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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 |
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1.
Eph. 2:4. © Copyright 1980 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana |
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