Vatican City, 9 December 2015 (VIS) –
Pope Francis dedicated today's general audience, the first of the
Holy Year, to explaining why he convoked a Jubilee of Mercy. “The
Church needs this extraordinary moment”, he explained. “In our
time of profound change, the Church is called upon to offer her
special contribution, making visible the signs of God's presence and
closeness. And the Jubilee is a propitious time for all, as
contemplating Divine Mercy, that exceeds all human limits and shines
onto the darkness of sin, we can be surer and more effective
witnesses”.
“Celebrating a Jubilee of Mercy means
restoring the specifics of Christian faith to the centre of our
personal life and of our communities. … This Holy Year is offered
to us so that we are able to experience in our life the sweet and
gentle touch of God's forgiveness, His presence next to us and His
closeness, especially in our moments of greatest need. … This
Jubilee is therefore a special moment for the Church to learn to
choose solely 'what God likes the most'. … Forgiving His children,
having mercy on them, so that they can in turn forgive their
brethren, to shine like beacons of God's mercy in the world. … The
Jubilee will be a propitious moment for the Church if we learn to
choose what God likes the most, without giving in to the temptation
to think that there is something else more important or that takes
priority. Nothing is more important than choosing what God likes
most, His mercy”.
“The necessary work of renewing
institutions and structures of the Church is also a way that can lead
us to a more lively and life-giving experience of God's mercy that
alone can ensure that the Church is that city on the mount that
cannot remain hidden. If we should forget, even for just a moment,
that mercy is what God likes the most, all our efforts would be in
vain, as we would become slaves to our institutions and our
structures, no matter how reformed they may be”.
The Pope emphasised that the Church's
aim during this Holy Year is to “strongly feel the joy of being
found by Jesus, Who like the Good Shepherd has come in search of us
as we were lost. … In this way we strengthen in ourselves our
certainty that mercy can truly contribute to building a more human
world. Especially in these times of ours, in which forgiveness is a
rare guest in the circles of human life, the call for mercy becomes
more urgent, and this is true in all places: in society, in
institutions, at work and in the family”.
Before concluding, he commented that
while there appear to be many other needs more urgent than that of
mercy, at the root of the negation of mercy there is always
self-love, “which results in the pursuit of self-interest and the
accumulation of honours, riches or worldliness. There are so many
manifestations of self-love, “that make mercy foreign to the world”
that often we are not even able to recognise them as limitations and
sins. He concluded, “we must recognise that we are sinners, so as
to strengthen our certainty of divine mercy”.
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