“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