C is for Compassion

This coming week, from Monday through Wednesday evening, Fr. Mike Shaw will be leading our parish mission, dedicated to the theme: Rich in Mercy: The Gift of Forgiveness. Fr. Mike is also preaching at all the Masses this weekend, to introduce the major themes of the retreat and to inspire our desire to participate in it as fully as we can. He will lead us on a journey to deeper understanding of these beautiful and complex realities: grace, mercy, repentance, forgiveness, salvation, and redemption. In our communal celebration of God’s forgiveness on Tuesday, we will rediscover the sacrament of Reconciliation as a precious source of self-knowledge, as a pathway to inner healing and freedom. Finally, we will be empowered to become missionaries of mercy: sent out into the world, sharing this good news of forgiveness and healing offered to us in Christ. It should be quite an adventure!

Pope Francis expresses this beautifully in his proclamation of the Year of Mercy:

Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy.

These words sum up the mystery of the Christian faith. Mercy has become living and visible in Jesus of Nazareth, reaching its culmination in him. The Father, “rich in mercy”, after having revealed his name to Moses as “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness”, has never ceased to show, in various ways throughout history, his divine nature. In the “fullness of time”, when everything had been arranged according to his plan of salvation, he sent his only Son into the world, born of the Virgin Mary, to reveal his love for us in a definitive way. Whoever sees Jesus sees the Father. Jesus of Nazareth, by his words, his actions, and his entire person reveals the mercy of God.

We need constantly to contemplate the mystery of mercy. It is a wellspring of joy, serenity, and peace. Our salvation depends on it. Mercy: the word reveals the very mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. Mercy: the ultimate and supreme act by which God comes to meet us. Mercy: the fundamental law that dwells in the heart of every person who looks sincerely into the eyes of his brothers and sisters on the path of life. Mercy: the bridge that connects God and humanity, opening our hearts to the hope of being loved forever, despite our sinfulness and brokenness.

So let us accept Christ’s invitation this week to become builders of bridges of understanding, rather than walls of hostility and fear. Let us become, in the words of St. Paul, “ambassadors of reconciliation”, sent forth to live and proclaim God’s mercy!

Want to hear more? Then make sure you come out this week for our parish mission, Rich in Mercy: The Gift of Forgiveness​ led by Fr. Mike Shaw from Monday through Wednesday evening, March 7-8-9. Please come and invite a friend – or an enemy!