5thSunday C07.02.2016
IntroductionYou are all welcome, especially our visitors. I want to talk to you today about the Year of Mercy. Pope Francis has called a Holy Year and he wants us to understand that Jesus is the face of God and he looks on us with eyes of mercy.
Penitential Rite
Jesus is the face of the Father’s mercy
Lord have mercy
Jesus looks on us with endless compassion
Christ have mercy
He goes to the cross for us and rises to new life
Lord have mercy
Isaiah 6Here I am, send me
Psalm 137Before the angels I will bless you, O Lord
1 Cor 15I preach what they preached. This is what you all believed
AcclamationI call you friends says the Lord,
because I have made known to you
everything I have leant from my Father
Omelia
Pope Francis comes from Argentina and he has brought a fresh approach to his ministry as Bishop of Rome. His thoughts are steeped in God’s mercy, as when he washed the feet of young offenders in Maundy Thursday. He has instituted a special Holy Year in 2016 calling it a Year of Mercy. What does he mean by this?
Pope Francis believes God is merciful. He cannot be anything else. He sends Jesus, his Son to live among us and teach us, as he does in today’s gospel. Francis says, Jesus Christ is the face of God’s mercy.After the Last Supper on their way to the Garden of Gethsemane,he and his friends sang His mercy endures forever, He opened his arms on the cross for us and took our burdens. He rises from the dead to share with us his new life.
Jesus told special stories about mercy in St Luke’s account. Do you remember the story of the Lost Sheep: the Lost Coin and the Two Brothers? The Father’s heart is filled with joy, when we return to him and seek to be reconciled. Mercy is at the heart of the Church’s mission. I know in my family, when there is ill feeling among us, because somebody has said something, or not done something.
It is a great relief when the matter is cleared up successfully, and we can make a new start.
There are two sides to mercy. Firstly we are to be convinced that it is in God’s nature to be merciful towards us. He can do no other. Like the father with the boy who left home in Luke 15, the father runs to his son who has come to his senses, he embraces him and re-instates him into the family. The forgiving father is a picture of God. That is how he is.
Therefore we must realize in our hearts that there is always a way back. This is why the leaders of the church are considering how we best extend a welcome to those in difficult situations. Francis wants us to realize that the Church will not simply forget those in complex circumstances. Francis says that the mercy of God is the beating heart of the gospel.
We are the church, of course, so we have to see that wherever the church is present, the mercy of God is evident. We have to seek mercy and be ready to offer it to other too. Sometimes we might think, “I could never confess that” or “No priest would forgive me this” However we know that Jesus did not turn people away. The year of mercy is a time to look for mercy and use the Sacrament of Reconciliation. So we ought to seek mercy. Pope Francis also asks us to go out to edges and the margins and offer people another chance. For instance he speaks to people in gangs, living with organized crime. “Life does not depend on money” He gives the same invitation to those involved in corruption. “It shatters the plans of the weak, it spreads evil and causes great scandal”. The late President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania used to call in rising ministers and ask them, “How can you afford such a big house on your MP’s salary. Where has the money come from?” When he retired from office he had no home of his own and the authorities made him have a small bungalow.
We are also to practice the corporal works of mercy ourselves, for we do it for him if we help anyone in need. Feed the hungry; give drink the thirsty; clothe the naked; look out for the homeless; visit the sick; go to see those in prison; bury the dead. These are practical things that we all try to do. There are also spiritual works of mercy, to instruct and counsel people; to admonish sinners and attract them; to bear wrongs manfully and to forgive offences, to comfort the afflicted and to pray for the living and for the dead.
An open door is a symbol of mercy. There is a Holy Door in St Peter’s in Rome and this is imitated by many Jubilee doors all over the world. There is a deep symbolism in walking though a welcome doorway to enjoy the indulgent mercy of God. I walk into your mercy Lord and you are there to help me.After the summer, we will go in pilgrimage as a parish to St George’s in Worcester and enter the Holy Door as a sign that we will give and seek God’s mercy.