“I desire mercy, and not sacrifice” (Mt 9:13).
The works of mercy on the road of the Jubilee
1. Mary, the image of a Church which evangelizes because she is evangelized
In the Bull of Indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, I asked that “the season of Lent in this
Jubilee Year be lived more intensely as a privileged moment to celebrate and experience God’s
mercy” (Misericordiae Vultus, 17). By calling for an attentive listening to the word of God and
encouraging the initiative “24 Hours for the Lord”, I sought to stress the primacy of prayerful
listening to God’s word, especially his prophetic word. The mercy of God is a proclamation made
to the world, a proclamation which each Christian is called to experience at first hand. For this
reason, during the season of Lent I will send out Missionaries of Mercy as a concrete sign to
everyone of God’s closeness and forgiveness.
After receiving the Good News told to her by the Archangel Gabriel, Mary, in her Magnificat,
prophetically sings of the mercy whereby God chose her. The Virgin of Nazareth, betrothed to
Joseph, thus becomes the perfect icon of the Church which evangelizes, for she was, and
continues to be, evangelized by the Holy Spirit, who made her virginal womb fruitful. In the
prophetic tradition, mercy is strictly related – even on the etymological level – to the maternal
womb (rahamim) and to a generous, faithful and compassionate goodness (hesed) shown within
marriage and family relationships.
2. God’s covenant with humanity: a history of mercy
The mystery of divine mercy is revealed in the history of the covenant between God and his
people Israel. God shows himself ever rich in mercy, ever ready to treat his people with deep
tenderness and compassion, especially at those tragic moments when infidelity ruptures the bond
of the covenant, which then needs to be ratified more firmly in justice and truth. Here is a true love
story, in which God plays the role of the betrayed father and husband, while Israel plays the
unfaithful child and bride. These domestic images – as in the case of Hosea (cf. Hos 1-2) – show
to what extent God wishes to bind himself to his people.
This love story culminates in the incarnation of God’s Son. In Christ, the Father pours forth his
boundless mercy even to making him “mercy incarnate” (Misericordiae Vultus, 8). As a man, Jesus
of Nazareth is a true son of Israel; he embodies that perfect hearing required of every Jew by the
Shema, which today too is the heart of God’s covenant with Israel: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our
God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul,
and with all your might” (Dt 6:4-5). As the Son of God, he is the Bridegroom who does everything
to win over the love of his bride, to whom he is bound by an unconditional love which becomes
visible in the eternal wedding feast.
This is the very heart of the apostolic kerygma, in which divine mercy holds a central and
fundamental place. It is “the beauty of the saving love of God made manifest in Jesus Christ who
died and rose from the dead” (Evangelii Gaudium, 36), that first proclamation which “we must hear
again and again in different ways, the one which we must announce one way or another
throughout the process of catechesis, at every level and moment” (ibid., 164). Mercy “expresses
God’s way of reaching out to the sinner, offering him a new chance to look at himself, convert, and
believe” (Misericordiae Vultus, 21), thus restoring his relationship with him. In Jesus crucified, God
shows his desire to draw near to sinners, however far they may have strayed from him. In this way
he hopes to soften the hardened heart of his Bride.
3. The works of mercy
God’s mercy transforms human hearts; it enables us, through the experience of a faithful love, to
become merciful in turn. In an ever new miracle, divine mercy shines forth in our lives, inspiring
each of us to love our neighbour and to devote ourselves to what the Church’s tradition calls the
spiritual and corporal works of mercy. These works remind us that faith finds expression in
concrete everyday actions meant to help our neighbours in body and spirit: by feeding, visiting,
comforting and instructing them. On such things will we be judged. For this reason, I expressed
my hope that “the Christian people may reflect on the corporal and spiritual works of mercy; this
will be a way to reawaken our conscience, too often grown dull in the face of poverty, and to enter
more deeply into the heart of the Gospel where the poor have a special experience of God’s
mercy” (ibid., 15). For in the poor, the flesh of Christ “becomes visible in the flesh of the tortured,
the crushed, the scourged, the malnourished, and the exiled… to be acknowledged, touched, and
cared for by us” (ibid.). It is the unprecedented and scandalous mystery of the extension in time of
the suffering of the Innocent Lamb, the burning bush of gratuitous love. Before this love, we can,
like Moses, take off our sandals (cf. Ex 3:5), especially when the poor are our brothers or sisters in
Christ who are suffering for their faith.
In the light of this love, which is strong as death (cf. Song 8:6), the real poor are revealed as those
who refuse to see themselves as such. They consider themselves rich, but they are actually the
poorest of the poor. This is because they are slaves to sin, which leads them to use wealth and
power not for the service of God and others, but to stifle within their hearts the profound sense that
they too are only poor beggars. The greater their power and wealth, the more this blindness and
deception can grow. It can even reach the point of being blind to Lazarus begging at their doorstep
(cf. Lk 16:20-21). Lazarus, the poor man, is a figure of Christ, who through the poor pleads for our
conversion. As such, he represents the possibility of conversion which God offers us and which we
may well fail to see. Such blindness is often accompanied by the proud illusion of our own
omnipotence, which reflects in a sinister way the diabolical “you will be like God” (Gen 3:5) which
is the root of all sin. This illusion can likewise take social and political forms, as shown by the
totalitarian systems of the twentieth century, and, in our own day, by the ideologies of
monopolizing thought and technoscience, which would make God irrelevant and reduce man to
raw material to be exploited. This illusion can also be seen in the sinful structures linked to a
model of false development based on the idolatry of money, which leads to lack of concern for the
fate of the poor on the part of wealthier individuals and societies; they close their doors, refusing
even to see the poor.
For all of us, then, the season of Lent in this Jubilee Year is a favourable time to overcome our
existential alienation by listening to God’s word and by practising the works of mercy. In the
corporal works of mercy we touch the flesh of Christ in our brothers and sisters who need to be
fed, clothed, sheltered, visited; in the spiritual works of mercy – counsel, instruction, forgiveness,
admonishment and prayer – we touch more directly our own sinfulness. The corporal and spiritual
works of mercy must never be separated. By touching the flesh of the crucified Jesus in the
suffering, sinners can receive the gift of realizing that they too are poor and in need. By taking this
path, the “proud”, the “powerful” and the “wealthy” spoken of in the Magnificat can also be
embraced and undeservedly loved by the crucified Lord who died and rose for them. This love
alone is the answer to that yearning for infinite happiness and love that we think we can satisfy
with the idols of knowledge, power and riches. Yet the danger always remains that by a constant
refusal to open the doors of their hearts to Christ who knocks on them in the poor, the proud, rich
and powerful will end up condemning themselves and plunging into the eternal abyss of solitude
which is Hell. The pointed words of Abraham apply to them and to all of us: “They have Moses and
the prophets; let them hear them” (Lk 16:29). Such attentive listening will best prepare us to
celebrate the final victory over sin and death of the Bridegroom, now risen, who desires to purify
his Betrothed in expectation of his coming.
Let us not waste this season of Lent, so favourable a time for conversion! We ask this through the
maternal intercession of the Virgin Mary, who, encountering the greatness of God’s mercy freely
bestowed upon her, was the first to acknowledge her lowliness (cf. Lk 1:48) and to call herself the
Lord’s humble servant (cf. Lk 1:38).
From the Vatican, 4 October 2015
Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi
FRANCIS