“I believe this is the time for mercy”, words spoken by Pope Francis in his ninety minute interchange with journalists on the plane journey back to Rome from the World Youth Gathering in Brazil last summer.
Why are journalists and TV presenters as well as the ordinary people in the street willing to say “We all love Francis”? The message that Pope Francis shares is “old” but the “tone” is new and this it seems is what has caught peoples’ imagination today.
People respond not only to the words that Francis uses but are fascinated by the way he actually lives what he says. Stories abound about his simple, uncluttered way of being and doing – a mercy-filled way of living:
He feeds the hungry – the man in charge of alms giving in the Vatican (a charity that is funded by the money people pay to get a papal blessing) was told to use up all the money he had to hand and even to sell off his desk in order to feed the poor. A phone card was placed in all the food parcels that were distributed by the Vatican this Christmas which allowed many migrants to phone home or someone they knew for Christmas courtesy of Pope Francis!
He hugs the sick and spends time listening to them – the picture of Francis hugging the man suffering from external tumours went viral. The longest part of his weekly audience is given over to greeting and talking to the sick and the people who take care of them.
He visits those in prison and washes their feet. During the Easter Triduum last year he broke with tradition by going out to one of the prisons in the city for the evening mass and washing the feet of men and women there.
For Francis, it would seem that mercy is the prism through which he communicates and gives expression to the love of God that flows through him. Quoting Thomas Aquinas in Evangelii Gaudium (39,40) he says “as far as external works are concerned mercy is the greatest of all the virtues since all the others revolve around it and more than this, it makes up for their deficiencies”.
Francis’ emphasis on mercy is a challenge to look anew at Catherine McAuley and how she lived the charism of mercy, so that we might bring out of our treasured legacy something old, something new!
Visiting the Sick – one of the corporal works of Mercy
The feminine genius in Catherine shines through in the practical way by which she gave expression to the gift of God’s love flowing in and through her in the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.
Walter Kasper (2012) in his book Misericordia (215), points out that the basis for what exactly mercy is, is found in Jesus’ discourse on universal justice in Mt.25. Kasper also notes that St. Benedict in his Rule adds a fifteenth work of mercy which is “never ever despair of the mercy of God”, a phrase we hear very often on the lips of Francis.
In Jesus’ discourse, (Mt. 25) condemnation is not for transgressions of the Ten Commandments but for omitting to do good. According to this judgement we can sin not only by breaking the commandments but also by failing to do good.
In the case of mercy we are challenged to be aware and sensitive towards the misery that we meet concretely in our day to day lives. We are faced with going beyond our own self centeredness which makes us deaf and blind to the spiritual and corporal needs of others. In Evangelii Gaudium Francis says that the worst discrimination against the poor is the lack of spiritual care offered them: “the poor must be offered the friendship of Jesus, the blessing of his word”.
Mercy challenges us to soften the hardness that creeps into our hearts towards the call of God to us when we come in contact with the pain and need of the other person.
Mercy is Jesus’ challenge – his call to conversion, to avoid falling into the sin of omission.
Mercy is Francis’ challenge today to all people of good will – to bring back tenderness and compassion to a world longing for these gifts.
Mercy is Catherine’s legacy to us – that we continue to find new ways to live our graced heritage as women of mercy.
How will we respond today?
“I was hungry and you gave me to eat, thirsty and you gave me to drink ………..”
The challenge of mercy ever old, ever new.
Brenda Dolphin rsm
Postulator for the Cause of Catherine McAuley
Congregation
