Category Archives: Mercy

Mercy

To Live is Christ, To Die is Gain

From a homily at the canonization of Saint Maria Goretti  by Pope Pius XII

It is well known how this young girl had to face a bitter struggle with no way to defend herself. Without warning a vicious stranger burst upon her, bent on raping her and destroying her childlike purity. In that moment of crisis she could have spoken to her Redeemer in the words of that classic, The Imitation of Christ: “Though tested and plagued by a host of misfortunes, I have no fear so long as your grace is with me. It is my strength, stronger than any adversary; it helps me and gives me guidance.” With splendid courage she surrendered herself to God and his grace and so gave her life to protect her virginity.

The life of this simple girl—I shall concern myself only with highlights—we can see as worthy of heaven. Even today people can look upon it with admiration and respect. Parents can learn from her story how to raise their God-given children in virtue, courage, and holiness; they can learn to train them in the Catholic faith so that, when put to the test, God’s grace will support them and they will come through undefeated, unscathed, and untarnished.

From Maria’s story carefree children and young people with their zest for life can learn not to be led astray by attractive pleasures which are not only ephemeral and empty but also sinful. Instead they can fix their sights on achieving Christian moral perfection, however difficult and hazardous that course may prove. With determination and God’s help all of us can attain that goal by persistent effort and prayer.

Not all of us are expected to die a martyr’s death, but we are all called to the pursuit of Christian virtue. This demands strength of character though it may not match that of this innocent girl. Still, a constant, persistent, and relentless effort is asked of us right up to the moment of our death. This may be conceived as a slow, steady martyrdom which Christ urged upon us when he said: The kingdom of heaven is set upon and laid waste by violent forces.

So let us all, with God’s grace, strive to reach the goal that the example of the virgin martyr, Saint Maria Goretti, sets before us. Through her prayers to the Redeemer may all of us, each in his own way, joyfully try to follow the inspiring example of Maria Goretti who now enjoys eternal happiness in heaven.

Be faithful till the death, God will fight for you, alleluia! Do not be afraid of murderers: they kill bodies because they cannot do anything else. The winner is who believes in Me. He will never know a second death.

Trust in God, be faithful, and trust in God!

My God, you are the source of innocence, of purity, and you have given young Maria Goretti the grace of martyrdom; please give us, thanks to her intercession, the courage for respecting your commandments like that girl who received the right reward to have defended her virginity till the death.

Pious XII – Rome, June 24, 1950

Immaculate Heart of Mary

Mary Hope and Refuge of Sinners

Father Razzi, of the order of Camaldoli, relates
that a certain youth having lost his father, was
sent by his mother to the court of a prince.
The mother, who had a great devotion to Mary,
when she parted with him made him promise to
recite every day a “Hail Mary,” and add these
words: “Blessed Virgin, help me in the hour of
my death” The youth arrived at court, but
soon began to lead so dissolute a life, that his
master was obliged to send him away. In de
spair, without means of support, he went into the
country and became a highway robber; but even
then he did not omit to recommend himself to
our Lady, as his mother had directed him, At
length he fell into the hands of justice, and was
condemned to death. Being in prison the evening
before his execution, and thinking of his dis
grace, the grief of his mother, and the death
which awaited him, he fell to weeping bitterly.

The devil seeing him so oppressed by melancholy,
appeared to him in the form of a beautiful young
man, and said to him that he would release him
from death and prison, if he would follow his
directions. The convict engaged to do all that
he required. Then the pretended youth made
known to him that he was the devil and had come
to his assistance. In the first place, he ordered
him to renounce Jesus Christ and the holy sacra
ments. The youth consented. He then requir
ed him to renounce the Virgin Mary and her
protection. “This,” exclaimed the young man,
“I will never do,” and turning to Mary, repeat
ed the accustomed prayer that his mother had
taught him: Blessed Virgin, help me in the hour
of my death. At these words the devil disap
peared. The youth remained in great affliction
for the wickedness he had committed in denying
Jesus Christ. He invoked the blessed Virgin,
and she obtained for him, by her prayers, a great
sorrow for all his sins, so that he made his con
fession with much weeping and contrition. On
his way to the gallows, happening to pass before
a statue of Mary, he saluted her with his usual prayer:

Blessed Virgin, help me in the hour of
my death, and the statue, in the presence of all,
inclined its head and saluted him. Deeply moved,
he begged to be allowed to kiss the feet of
the image. The executioners refused, but after
wards consented on account of the clamor of the
people. The youth stooped to kiss her feet,
and Mary extended her arm from that
statue, took him by the hand and held
him so strongly that no power could
move him. At this prodigy the multitude
shouted “Pardon, pardon,” and pardon was grant
ed. Having returned to his country, he led an
exemplary life, and was always most devoted to
Mary, who had delivered him from temporal
and eternal death.

From the Glories of Mary

.

Prayer to Mary

by Pope St John Paul II

O Immaculate Virgin, Mother of the true God and Mother of the Church!, who from this place reveal your clemency and your pity to all those who ask for your protection, hear the prayer that we address to you with filial trust, and present it to your Son Jesus, our sole Redeemer.
Mother of Mercy, Teacher of hidden and silent sacrifice, to you, who come to meet us sinners, we dedicate on this day all our being and all our love. We also dedicate to you our life, our work, our joys, our infirmities and our sorrows. Grant peace, justice and prosperity to our peoples; for we entrust to your care all that we have and all that we are, our Lady and Mother. We wish to be entirely yours and to walk with you along the way of complete faithfulness to Jesus Christ in His Church; hold us always with your loving hand.

Grant to our homes the grace of loving and respecting life in its beginnings, with the same love with which you conceived in your womb the life of the Son of God. Blessed Virgin Mary, protect our families, so that they may always be united, and bless the upbringing of our children.

Our hope, look upon us with compassion, teach us to go continually to Jesus and, if we fall, help us to rise again, to return to Him, by means of the confession of our faults and sins in the Sacrament of Penance, which gives peace to the soul.

We beg you to grant us a great love for all the holy Sacraments, which are, as it were, the signs that your Son left us on earth. Thus, Most Holy Mother, with the peace of God in our conscience, with our hearts free from evil and hatred, we will be able to bring to all true joy and true peace, which come to us from your son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns for ever and ever.

Amen

He is Risen

From the Hymn He is Risen

He is Risen, He is Risen
Tell it with a joyful voice.
Christ has burst the three days’ prison;
Let the whole wide earth rejoice.
Death is conquered, we are free;
Christ has won the victory.

Come, you sad and fearful hearted,
With glad smile and radiant brow.
Death’s dark shadows have departed,
All our woes are over now;
Through the passion that he bore,
Sin and pain have pow’r no more.

Come with high and holy hymning;
Chant our Lord’s triumphant might.
Not one gloomy cloud is dimming
That bright glorious morning light
Breaking o’er the purple east,
Symbol of our Easter feast.

Christ is risen, Christ is risen!
And has opened heaven’s gate.
We are free from evil’s prison,
Risen to a holier state;
And a brighter Easter beam
On our longing eyes shall stream.

Good Friday – trust that we are loved in our weakness

Listen to the actual homily:

Transcript:

“At the foot of the cross, at the supreme hour of the new creation, Christ led us to Mary. He brought us to her because he did not want us to journey without a mother” (Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium #285)

Why do we need a mother?

She is the one who teaches us to trust that we are loved in our weakness. To trust in love even when we are weak. This is the wealth that Jesus wants us to have. To trust that we are loved in our weakness. This is the wealth that exposes the bankruptcy of Satan’s lies. It is the currency of heaven. It is the power that can topple the kingdom of darkness and it transfers us to the kingdom of light: unwavering trust that we are loved in the midst of our weakness.

Saint Paul told us that Christ became poor that we might become rich (2 Cor 8:9). Pope Francis explained that the richness Christ gives us, the wealth that He shares with us is “His boundless confidence in God the Father, his constant trust…”. He said, “Jesus is rich in the same way as a child who feels love and who loves its parents, without doubting their love and tenderness for an instant.” (Pope Francis Message for Lent 2014)

Jesus waged war on the Enemy
In the hands of one who trusts like that, weakness becomes a weapon. The weapon of weakness defeats the power of Satan. It is the story of the Gospel. From the beginning of his public ministry when Jesus faced off with Satan by charging out into the desert, which was Satan’s own backyard, he wielded the weapons of human weakness: Hunger, helplessness, powerlessness…and despite Satan’s temptations, He did not grasp at divine power to save Himself, but He simply remained human, weak and TRUSTING. He used the wealth of His boundless trust in God the Father to buy us back from our slavery. And in so doing He brought that wealth to us. He brought us trust that we are still loved when we are hungry, when we are helpless, when we are powerless. He taught us to make our weakness a weapon against Satan by remaining weak but also trusting in divine love, rather than grasping at worldly power. Satan departed from him for a time, but we read today about the final face off…

In the Passion of Jesus, He wields again the weapons of weakness and He shares with us the wealth of his trust, His boundless confidence in the Father’s love. In His human weakness, He experiences betrayal, abandonment, helplessness, defenselessness. He is interrogated, ridiculed, labeled, bullied, beaten, stripped naked, drugged, immobilized, crushed and crucified. His heart swelled, His lungs collapsed, His hands were nailed, His tender skull pierced with thorns.

His weakness is so extreme we could say He is reduced to the state of a child, even an infant. He has no defenses, no worldly power. Like Frodo in the Lord of the Rings, He has lost all His friends with their swords and shields. He has only His Mother, His faithful Samwise who loves Him as He carries His burden. She is no earthly soldier, she is only armed with compassion and love. And she will never leave His side. She helps him to keep trusting that He is loved in His weakness. She is an abiding sign of the Father’s tenderness. We need those tangible human signs.

All the while, Jesus is spreading His wealth to the weak and the poor. As He touches our weakness, He holds out His trust and He points our hearts to the Father’s love. We are still loved. He looks on us with love. He gives us His Mother’s Heart and her compassion and love. We only have to let go of our defenses: our violence and passive aggression, our complaining, the tombs of fear that we hide in, our achievements and trophies, domination and manipulation, threats and cursing, greed and gluttony, our rivalries and comparisons, arrogance, pride, vanity, cynicism, sarcasm and hopelessness, our lusts and empty entertainments that dull our hearts as we escape into fantasies. We use all these to cover up weakness, but they only form a cyst around it. Our weakness never goes away. For some who hide it their whole lives, it only reappears at the end when in debilitating disease and death we have no other defenses left. The only way out is to trust enough to expose it, and to discover we are still loved in it.

In His Passion Jesus fervently pursues us. By embracing our weakness He seeks out and finds the lost sheep in us, a little sheep that is lost and frightened behind all our defenses. And He shares His treasure with us — boundless confidence in the Father’s love.

He even enters into our deepest agony, our most anguished cries, “My God, my God why have you abandoned me??” He gives us permission to cry out like this. The weak, hurting child in us needs to cry out, because the very fact of crying out is itself an act of hope. This cry is not an expression of despair but is filled with trust in God the Father. If he had no trust that He would be heard, He would never have cried out. Satan wields fear and pride to convince us to keep our cries to ourselves, but Jesus teaches us to cry out like a little child and to discover that our Father DOES hear us…and He still loves us. Later in the same psalm 22 he affirms

“… Give him praise … For he has never despised nor scorned the poverty of the poor.
From him he has not hidden his face, but he heard him whenever he cried.”
Jesus affirms our urge to cry out. It is an act of trust that we are loved in the midst of our weakness.

The victory of vulnerability

Finally, in the end, Jesus wins the victory of vulnerability. Vulnerability is another word for opening our hearts in trust when we feel so weak. In His last breath, Jesus shows us the victory of vulnerability. He dealt the final blow to Satan by embracing our greatest weakness—death. Even in death He trusted, “Into your hands, Father, I commend my spirit” and He declared victory, “It is finished…”. Like Frodo, He carried the burden of our weakness all the way into the pits of evil without ever letting go of trust in His Father’s love.

Now it is our turn to learn this trust, to collect the wealth Christ has left us, to learn the weapons of weakness and the victory of vulnerability. For this, He gave us His Mother. He says to us, “Behold your mother.” And we are invited to take her into the deepest center of our lives and learn trust from her.

That’s how it began with His disciples. After the crucifixion she taught them to hope. The Gospel tells us, “The sabbath was about to begin…” After the darkest night and the deep silence of the death of God, a light appeared in the windows of Jerusalem. First one and then another. In each household, the mother of the household lit a candle and prayed, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has sanctified us through Your commandment and commanded us to kindle the Sabbath candles.” Even from the devastating weakness of darkness, death, silence and night, Mary lit the Sabbath candles and led her new little son John in prayer, teaching him to trust that he was loved in the midst of his weakness. The sky was still dark and Jesus was still in the tomb, but our Mother taught her little son to hope that love is stronger than death and goodness is stronger than hate and that he is still loved in the helplessness of Good Friday. She passed on to him and she passes on to us the wealth that Christ brought us—to trust that we are loved in the depths of our weakness.

The Merciful Chair of St. Peter

The Second Vatican Council taught clearly about the authority of the Pope, the Successor of St. Peter. It is easy to misinterpret this power, given to one man, in purely secular terms, and to fear the damage he could do. With the help of Sacred Scripture and the reflections of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (who later became Pope Benedict XVI) , G.K. Chesterton, the Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen, and Pope Francis, however, we will see that papal primacy and the celebration of this mystery on the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, are truly mysteries of God's boundless mercy.

Petrine primacy

In the Second Vatican Council's great teaching on the Church, with the Latin title Lumen Gentium, we get a clear presentation of the power entrusted to the Pope:

Just as in the Gospel, the Lord so disposing, St. Peter and the other apostles constitute one apostolic college, so in a similar way the Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter, and the bishops, the successors of the apostles, are joined together. … But the college or body of bishops has no authority unless it is understood together with the Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter as its head. The pope's power of primacy over all, both pastors and faithful, remains whole and intact. In virtue of his office, that is as Vicar of Christ and pastor of the whole Church, the Roman Pontiff has full, supreme and universal power over the Church. (Lumen Gentium #22)

Scriptural witnesses

The language of the Church in the Second Vatican Council including “primacy” and “full, supreme and universal power” developed its precision over time as it was elaborated throughout the history of the Church, but it finds its origin in the words spoken by Jesus to Peter in Sacred Scripture, “feed my lambs … tend my sheep … feed my sheep,” (John 21:15,16,17) and “I have prayed that your own faith may not fail; and once you have turned back, you must strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:32) We can look also to the affirmations of St. Paul who went specifically to Peter (Cephas) to confer with him on disputed points in the faith (Gal 1:18) and testifies that he did it specifically so that he “might not be running, or have run, in vain.” (Gal 2:2) It is also Peter who is identified by St. Paul as the first witness of the Resurrection (1 Cor 15:3-7) and in lists which vary in many details, Peter is named first in every listing of the twelve Apostles (Matthew 10:2-4, Mark 3:16-19, Luke 6:14-16 and Acts 1:13). Finally, the most well known passage, which is also the Gospel for the Mass for the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, states persuasively, “You are Peter and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bound on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:18-19)

Peter's weakness

In reflecting on all these texts, however, we cannot take a triumphalist approach to Petrine primacy, because another point emerges more strongly–the mercy of God. Each scriptural affirmation of Jesus's choice of St. Peter to lead the Apostles and the Church is accompanied by an acknowledgement of Peter's weakness and failure. The commission from John 21 is interspersed with a threefold recognition of Peter's threefold betrayal. The call that Jesus gives to Peter in Luke 22 will take effect after Peter's recovery from his denial. When St. Paul affirms the role of Peter as a criterion for the authenticity of the Gospel in Galatians 1, he also recognizes the personal failure of Peter in Galatians 2:14. Finally, in the context of the power entrusted to Peter in Matthew 16, we find Peter chastised by Jesus immediately afterwards for being a stumbling block and failing to think as God does (Matthew 18:23).

Observations of Ratzinger, Chesterton, Sheen and Pope Francis

In light of these Scriptures, which Cardinal Ratzinger interpreted more carefully and thoroughly in the book Called to Communion, he concluded that Petrine primacy is really a doctrine of mercy. The choice of Peter, in the face of his profound weakness, shows that the Church is built on the rock of mercy and forgiveness:

This seems to me to be a cardinal point. At the inmost core of the new commission which robs the forces of the destruction of their power is the grace of forgiveness. It constitutes the Church. The Church is founded on forgiveness. Peter himself is a personal embodiment of this truth, for he is permitted to be the bearer of the keys after having stumbled, confessed and received the grace of pardon. The Church is by nature the home of forgiveness, and Peter is the perpetual living reminder of this reality: she [the Church] is not a communion of the perfect but a communion of sinners who need and seek forgiveness. Behind the talk of authority, God's power appears as mercy and thus as the foundation stone of the Church; in the background we hear the word of the Lord: “It is not the healthy who have need of the physician, but those who are ill; I have not come to all the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17) (Called to Communion, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger)

Saint Paul expresses this principle clearly, sharing it from his own experience and relating the words of Jesus to him, “My grace is sufficient for you for power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) He firmly embraces the same mystery that is manifested in Peter, “for when I am weak, then I am strong.” As Cardinal Ratzinger identified, the “Church is founded on forgiveness…she is not a communion of the perfect but a communion of sinners who need and seek forgiveness.”

G.K. Chesterton expressed the same truth in his own unique way, touched with humor, pointing out that by founding the Church on the weakness of Peter, Jesus subverted the wisdom of the world and according to the mystery of divine wisdom thus prevented the Church from suffering the ultimate collapse that worldly wisdom is subject to:

The thing which is valuable and lovable in our eyes is man—the old beer-drinking, creed-making, fighting, failing, sensual, respectable man. And the things that have been founded on this creature immortally remain; the things that have been founded on the fancy of the Superman have died with the dying civilizations which alone have given them birth. When Christ at a symbolic moment was establishing His great society, He chose for its corner-stone neither the brilliant Paul nor the mystic John, but a shuffler, a snob, a coward—in a word, a man. And upon this rock He has built His Church, and the gates of Hell have not prevailed against it. All the empires and the kingdoms have failed, because of this inherent and continual weakness, that they were founded by strong men and upon strong men. But this one thing, the historic Christian Church, was founded on a weak man, and for that reason it is indestructible. For no chain is stronger than its weakest link. —G. K. Chesterton, Heretics

The great televangelist Archbishop Fulton Sheen expressed it similarly, but in his own characteristic, poetic simplicity, “No chain is stronger than its weakest link, and the weakest link of the chain of Popes was the first. But that weak link was held in the hands of Christ. That is why the papacy will never fail.” (Quoted in Through the Year with Fulton Sheen)

Pope Francis reiterated this theme on the Feast of the Chair of St Peter in 2016 as he celebrated the Jubilee for the Roman Curia. He reminded those who support him in exercising St Peter's merciful power, that that power was originally and is still entrusted to weak and fallen men who are, therefore, in an even better position to seek out the lost, heal the sick and raise up their brothers from their sins:

Pastors, above all, are required to have as their model God Himself, who cares for His flock. The Prophet Ezekiel described God’s way of acting: He goes out in search of the lost sheep; He leads back the lost to the fold; He bandages the wounded and cares for the sick (34:16). A behavior that is a sign of a love that knows no bounds. It is a faithful, constant, unconditional dedication, that His mercy might reach all those who are weakest. And nevertheless, we must not forget that the prophecy of Ezekiel starts from the observation of the failures of the shepherds of Israel. (Pope Francis, homily, Chair of St Peter, translation by WAOB®)

Power Made Perfect in Weakness

From this vantage point we can revisit the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and see how the weakest man is placed in the center so that he can be a point of unity for all. “The Roman Pontiff, as the successor of Peter, is the perpetual and visible principle and foundation of unity of both the bishops and of the faithful.” (Lumen Gentium #24) After all, one thing that we all share is weakness and sin. Few are strong and none are sinless, so it makes divine sense that the principle of unity and cornerstone of the Church should be one who is deeply aware of his need for mercy so that the mercy of God can shine brightly through him. “Power is made perfect in weakness.”