FIVE YEARS OF POPE FRANCIS
March 13, 2013 - the day Pope Francis took on the divine mandate of leading the People of God. It has been five years and there are FIVE strong orientations that this wonderful person of God has given the Church and the world.
Mercy has been a keyword for Pope Francis right from the beginning. Just a few weeks into his papacy, he surprised everyone on a Sunday when he announced: "I wish to prescribe a medicine to you all" and proposed Misericordina...a box made like a sample tablet box with a rosary, a Divine Mercy chaplet and a picture of Divine Mercy Jesus...a kit that he symbolically handed over to all present at the Midday Angelus that Sunday. A call to Mercy!
This "Mercy" that he speaks of, has two essential dimensions and understanding both is an indispensable task for a true Christian.
Mercy of God: The first dimensions is the Mercy of God which is never lacking! God is never tired of forgiving, Pope Francis has repeated time and again. Mercy is the hallmark of the God we believe in...right from the beginning of creation up until now, because God is mercy! We need to understand God as the Merciful Father, Loving Mother, Bosom Friend, someone who is madly in love with us. Once we understand God to be such, we would insist more on an intimate relationship with God than mere religious practices of piety! This is the foundation on which the Holy Father invites us to build our faith and our daily Christian life.That leads us to the second dimension...
A Life of Mercy: Once we experience this unfathomable mercy of God, we should be transformed into living signs and expressions of that mercy. This is what Christ wants us to stand by and this is the criterion he gave for us to be called people who belong to God's fold or not, in Matthew 25. When the Holy Father announced the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy in the year 2015-2016, he had both these dimensions in mind - the former as the foundation for the celebration of the year and the latter as the fruit of the celebration. In short, he has been calling the Church to grow more and more merciful and become the face of the Mercy of God to the world today.
His natural tendency to go towards the sick and elderly whenever he is in a public audience, the compassion with which he embraces and hugs the persons with disabilities and the sick, the way he listens to people when they share their plights and the continuous call to be sensitive to those who are suffering due to various forms of poverty and misery - these are but his heart's longings, brought into live actions and translated into his words. We would do well to take this to heart - to be persons filled with mercy!
His natural tendency to go towards the sick and elderly whenever he is in a public audience, the compassion with which he embraces and hugs the persons with disabilities and the sick, the way he listens to people when they share their plights and the continuous call to be sensitive to those who are suffering due to various forms of poverty and misery - these are but his heart's longings, brought into live actions and translated into his words. We would do well to take this to heart - to be persons filled with mercy!
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