The centerpiece of Pope Francis’s pontificate from the very first days has been his proclamation of the importance of the mercy of God. While facing global problems of climate change, terror, political destabilization, refugees, and dire poverty, the Holy Father has articulated the mission of the Church through mercy, love, and forgiveness to reveal the compassion of God for all and particularly for those most vulnerable existing on the margins of society. In Pope Francis and Mercy, Gill Goulding, CJ, examines for the first time the critical and determinative role of mercy in Francis’s papacy using his homilies, allocutions, encyclicals, and addresses as primary sources.
“God’s love must take primacy over all else” Pope Francis stated in his Apostolic Letter at the conclusion of the jubilee year of mercy, November 20th 2016. For the Holy Father, the awareness that God is animated by a truly passionate love for human beings and that this love is always inclined towards us in tenderness is the fundamental determinant for the lives of all Christians. Authentic knowledge of the God of mercy and divine love reveals God as radically, recklessly vulnerable. “What delights and attracts, humbles and overcomes, opens and unleashes is not the power of instruments or the force of the law, but rather the omnipotent weakness of divine love, which is the irresistible force of its gentleness and the irrevocable pledge of its mercy.”
The extraordinary discovery that God in Christ overcomes evil through self-surrender, even to death on the cross, can inspire human persons to desire that ongoing conversion to God which is the prelude to authentic union. The fruit of such conversion can be a life lived from a disposition of gratitude and a spirit of radiant contemplation. This is the good news of mercy that Pope Francis desired to share and indeed, what he, himself, exemplified. It is a recognition that in and through the Church Christ desires to bring us once more to the Father by the transforming grace of the spirit. “The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summoned us to the revolution of tenderness.” It is this tenderness that lies at the heart of mercy because it is a tenderness that “never disappoints but is always capable of restoring our joy” always making it possible “for us to lift up our heads and to start again.” This is why the Pope desires to generate a ‘culture of mercy’ in the Church and he draws his own fervor from the transforming power of this tender love of Christ.
The gift of God’s mercy informs the dynamic program of the mission of the Church, because it is the very breath of life of the Church. “Mercy cannot become a mere parenthesis in the life of the Church; it constitutes her very existence, through which the profound truths of the Gospel are made manifest and tangible. Everything is revealed in mercy; everything is resolved in the merciful love of the Father” This gift of merciful love can only be most profoundly embraced through sharing. When received as gift it does not become a possession but always remains and indeed flourishes as a gift to be shared.
The overflowing nature of this gift of mercy brings with it a certain fortitude that enables Christians to take risks, to grow in the virtue of hope – to ‘hope against hope’, to share the joy of the gospel. As Pope Francis insisted: “Hope is struggling, holding onto the rope, in order to arrive … In the struggle of everyday, hope is a virtue of horizons, not of closure! Perhaps it is the virtue that is least understood, but it is the strongest. Hope: living in hope, living on hope always looking forward with courage.” Hope thus identified is also a source of significant energy and enthusiasm for acting in the present looking towards an open horizon with a merciful gaze.
Pope Francis’ passionate commitment to mercy is clearly evident in so many of his homilies and allocutions. “The truth of mercy” he stated in his homily for volunteer workers during the Jubilee year of mercy “is expressed in our daily gestures that make God’s actions visible in our midst.” He continued: “In the different contexts of the “need of so many people, your presence is the hand of Christ held out to all and reaching all. The credibility of the Church is also conveyed in a convincing way through your service to abandoned children, to the sick, the poor who lack food or work, to the elderly, the homeless, prisoners, refugees and immigrants, to all struck by natural disasters.” It is in the pragmatic reality of the small ordinary interactions of daily life that the work of mercy is undertaken, the gospel truly lived and the God of mercy glorified.