In the Basilica of Saint Paul outside the Walls this afternoon, the Holy Father, Pope Francis held the third meditation as part of the retreat he is offering to priests and seminarians who are in Rome for the celebration of their Jubilee.
The entire retreat has been preached today by the Pope and was followed by teleconference by priests in all three of the locations set aside, including the Basilicae of Saint John in Lateran and Saint Mary Major.
We hope that the Lord will grant us what we have asked for in prayer: to imitate Jesus' example of patience, and with patience, overcome difficulties.
This third meditation is entitled: The good odour of Christ and the light of his mercy.
In this, our third meeting, I propose that we meditate on the works of mercy, by taking whichever one we feel is most closely linked to our charism, and by looking at them as a whole. We can contemplate them through the merciful eyes of Our Lady, who helps us to find the wine that is lacking and encourages us to do whatever Jesus tells us (cf Jn 2:1-12), so that his mercy can work the miracles that our people need.
The works of mercy are closely linked to the spiritual senses. In our prayer we ask for the grace to be able to feel and savour the Gospel so that it can make us more sensitive in our lives. Moved by the Spirit and led by Jesus, we can see from afar, with the eyes of mercy, those who have fallen along the wayside. We can hear the cries of Bartimaeus and feel with Jesus the timid yet determined touch of the woman suffering from haemorrhage, as she grasps his robe. We can ask for the grace to taste with the crucified Jesus the bitter gall of all those who share in his cross, and smell the stench of misery - in field hospitals, in trains and in boats crammed with people. The balm of mercy does not disguise this stench. Rather, by anointing it, it awakens new hope.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in discussing the works of mercy, tells us that when her mother reproached her for care for the poor and the sick at home, Saint Rose of Lima said to her: ‘When we serve the poor and the sick, we are the good odour of Christ’ (No. 2449, Latin). That good odour of Christ – the care of the poor – is, and always has been, the hallmark of the Church. Paul made it the focus of his meeting with Peter, James and John, the pillars of the Church. He tells us that they asked only one thing, that we remember the poor (Gal 2:10). The Catechism goes on to say, significantly, that those who are oppressed by poverty are the object of a preferential love on the part of the Church, which from her origins, and in spite of the failings of many of her members, has not ceased to work for their relief, defence and liberation (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2448).
In the Church we have, and have always had, our sins and failings. But when it comes to serving the poor through the works of mercy, as a Church we have always followed the promptings of the Spirit. Our saints did this in quite creative and effective ways. Love for the poor has been the sign, the light that draws people to give glory to the Father. Our people value this in a priest who cares for the poor and the sick, for those whose sins he forgives and for those whom he patiently teaches and corrects ... Our people forgive us priests many failings, except for that of attachment to money. This does not have so much to do with money itself, but the fact that money makes us lose the treasure of mercy. Our people can sniff out which sins are truly grave for a priest, the sins that kill his ministry because they turn him into a bureaucrat or, even worse, a mercenary. They can also recognize which sins are, I won’t say secondary, but that have to be put up with, borne like a cross, until the Lord at last burns them away like the chaff. But the failure of a priest to be merciful is a glaring contradiction. It strikes at the heart of salvation, against Christ, who became poor so that by his poverty we might become rich (cf 2 Cor 8:9). Because mercy heals by losing something of itself. We feel a pang of regret and we lose a part of our life, because rather than do what we wanted to do, we reached out to someone else.
So it is not about God showing me mercy for this or that sin, as if I were otherwise self-sufficient, or about us performing some act of mercy towards this or that person in need. The grace we seek in this prayer is that of letting ourselves be shown mercy by God in every aspect of our lives and in turn to show mercy to others in all that we do. As priests and bishops, we work with the sacraments: baptizing, hearing confessions, celebrating the Eucharist ... Mercy is our way of making the entire life of God’s people a sacrament. Being merciful is not only a way of life, but the way of life. There is no other way of being a priest. Father Brochero, soon to be canonized, put it this way: The priest who has scarce pity for sinners is only half a priest. These vestments I wear are not what make me a priest; if I don’t have charity in my heart, I am not even a Christian.
To see needs and to bring immediate relief, and even more, to anticipate those needs: this is the mark of a father’s gaze. This priestly gaze – which takes the place of the father in the heart of Mother Church – makes us see people with the eyes of mercy. It has to be learned from seminary on, and it must enrich all our pastoral plans and projects. We desire, and we ask the Lord to give us, a gaze capable of discerning the signs of the times, to know what works of mercy our people need today in order to feel and savour the God of history who walks among them. For, as Aparecida says, quoting Saint Alberto Hurtado: In our works, our people know that we understand their suffering (Aparecida Document, 386).
The proof that we understand is that our works of mercy are blessed by God and meet with help and cooperation from our people. Some plans and projects do not work out well, without people ever realizing why. They rack their brains trying to come up with yet another pastoral plan, when all somebody has to say is: It’s not working because it lacks mercy, with no further ado. If it is not blessed, it is because it lacks mercy. It lacks the mercy found in a field hospital, not in expensive clinics; it lacks the mercy that values goodness and opens the door to an encounter with God, rather than turning someone away with sharp criticism.
I am going to propose a prayer about the woman whose sins were forgiven (Jn 8:3-11), to ask for the grace to be merciful in the confessional, and another prayer about the social dimension of the works of mercy. I have always been struck by the passage of the Lord’s encounter with the woman caught in adultery, and how, by refusing to condemn her, he fell short of the Law. In response to the question they asked to test him – should she be stoned or not? – he did not rule, he did not apply the law. He played dumb, and then turned to something else. He thus initiated a process in the heart of the woman who needed to hear those words: Neither do I condemn you. He stretched out his hand and helped her to her feet, letting her see a gentle gaze that changed her heart.
Sometimes I feel a little saddened and annoyed when people go straight to the last words Jesus speaks to her: Go and sin no more. They use these words to defend Jesus from bypassing the law. I believe that Christ’s words are at peace with his actions. He bends down to write on the ground as a prelude to what he is about to say to those who want to stone the woman, and he does so again before talking to her. This tells us something about the time that the Lord takes in judging and forgiving. The time he gives each person to look into his or her own heart and then to walk away. In talking to the woman, the Lord opens other spaces: one is that of non-condemnation. The Gospel clearly mentions this open space. It makes us see things through the eyes of Jesus, who tells us: I see no one else but this woman.
Then Jesus makes the woman herself look around. He asks her: Where are those who condemned you? (The word condemn is itself important, since it is about what we find unacceptable about those who judge or characterize us ...). Once he has opened this space before her eyes, freed of other people’s judgements, he tells her that neither will he throw a stone there: Nor do I condemn you. Then he opens up another free space before her: Go and sin no more. His command has to do with the future, to help her to make a new start and to walk in love. Such is the sensitivity of mercy: it looks with compassion on the past and offers encouragement for the future.
Those words, Go and sin no more are not easy. The Lord says them with her. He helps her put into words what she herself feels, a free no to sin that is like Mary’s yes to grace. That no has to be said to the deeply-rooted sin present in everyone. In that woman, it was a social sin; people approached her either to sleep with her or to throw stones at her. That is why the Lord does not only clear the path before her, but sets her on her way, so that she can stop being the object of other people's gaze and instead take control of her life. Those words, sin no more refer not only to morality, but, I believe, to a kind of sin that keeps her from living her life. Jesus also told the paralytic at Bethzatha to sin no more (Jn 5:14). But that man had justified himself with all the sad things that had happened to him; he suffered from a victim complex. So Jesus challenged him ever so slightly by saying: ... lest something worse happen to you. The Lord took advantage of his way of thinking, his fears, to draw him out of his paralysis. He gave him a little scare, we might say. The point is that each of us has to hear the words sin no more in his own deeply personal way.
This image of the Lord who sets people on their way is very typical. He is the God who walks at his people’s side, who leads them forward, who accompanies our history. Hence, the object of his mercy is quite clear: it is everything that keeps a man or a woman from walking on the right path, with their own people, at their own pace, to where God is asking them to go. What troubles him is that people get lost, or fall behind, or try to go it on their own. That they end up nowhere. That they are not there for the Lord, ready to go wherever he wants to send them. That they do not walk humbly before him (cf Mic 6:8), that they do not walk in love (cf Eph 5:2).
The space of the confessional, where the truth makes us free
Speaking of space, let us go to the confessional. The Catechism of the Catholic Church presents the confessional as the place where the truth makes us free for an encounter. When he celebrates the sacrament of penance, the priest is fulfilling the ministry of the Good Shepherd who seeks the lost sheep, of the Good Samaritan who binds up wounds, of the Father who awaits the prodigal son and welcomes him on his return, and of the just and impartial Judge whose judgement is both just and merciful. The priest is the sign and the instrument of God’s merciful love for the sinner (CIC, 1465). The Catechism also reminds us that the confessor is not the master of God's forgiveness but its servant. The minister of this sacrament should unite himself to the intention and charity of Christ (CIC, 1466).
Signs and instruments of an encounter. That is what we are. An attractive invitation to an encounter. As signs, we must be welcoming, sending a message that attracts people’s attention. Signs need to be consistent and clear, but above all understandable. Some signs are only clear to specialists. Signs and instruments. Instruments have to be effective, readily available, precise and suitable for the job. We are instruments if people have a genuine encounter with the God of mercy. Our task is to make that encounter possible, face-to-face. What people do afterwards is their business. There is a prodigal son among the pigs and a father who goes out every afternoon to see if he is returning. There is a lost sheep and a shepherd who goes out to seek him. There is a wounded person left at the roadside and a good-hearted Samaritan. What is our ministry? It is to be signs and instruments enabling this encounter. Let us always remember that we are not the father, the shepherd or the Samaritan. Rather, inasmuch as we are sinners, we are on the side of the other three. Our ministry has to be a sign and instrument of that encounter. We are part of the mystery of the Holy Spirit, who creates the Church, builds unity, and constantly invites us to encounter.
The other mark of a sign and instrument is that it is not self-referential. Put more simply, it is not an end in itself. Nobody sticks with the sign once they understand the reality. Nobody keeps looking at the screwdriver or the hammer, but at the well-hung picture. We are useless servants. Instruments and signs that help two people to join in an embrace, like the father and his son.
The third mark of a sign and instrument is its availability. An instrument has to be readily accessible; a sign must be visible. Being a sign and instrument is about being a mediator. Perhaps this is the real key to our own mission in this merciful encounter of God and man. We could even put it in negative terms. Saint Ignatius talked about not getting in the way. A good mediator makes things easy, rather than setting up obstacles. In my country, there was a great confessor, Father Cullen. He would sit in the confessional and do one of two things: he would repair worn soccer balls for the local kids, or he would thumb through a big Chinese dictionary. He used to say that when people saw him doing such completely useless things like fixing old soccer balls or trying to master Chinese, they would think: I’m going to go up and talk to this priest, since he obviously doesn’t have much to do! He was available for what was essential. He got rid of the obstacle of always looking busy and serious.
Everybody has known good confessors. We have to learn from our good confessors, the ones who people seek out, who do not make them afraid but help them to speak frankly, as Jesus did with Nicodemus. If people come to confession it is because they are penitent; repentance is already present. They come to confession because they want to change. Or at least they want to want to change, if they think their situation is impossible. Ad impossibilia nemo tenetur, as the old maxim goes: no one is obliged to do the impossible.
We have to learn from good confessors, those who are gentle with sinners, who after a couple of words understand everything, as Jesus did with the woman suffering from a haemorrhage, and straightaway the power of forgiveness goes forth from them. The integrity of confession is not a mathematics problem. Sometimes people feel less shame in confessing a sin than in stating the number of times they committed it. We have to let ourselves be moved by people’s situation, which at times is a mixture of their own doing, human weakness, sin and insufferable conditionings. We have to be like Jesus, who was deeply moved by the sight of people and their problems, and kept healing them, even when they didn’t ask properly, like that leper who seemed to beat around the bush, or like the Samaritan woman. She was like a bird we have in South America: she squawked in one place but had her nest in another.
We have to learn from confessors who can enable penitents to feel amendment in taking a small step forwards, like Jesus, who gave a suitable penance and could appreciate the one leper who returned to thank him, on whom he bestowed yet more. Jesus had his mat taken away from the paralytic, and he made the blind man and the Syro-Phoenician woman have to ask. It didn’t matter to him if they paid no attention to him, like the paralytic at the pool of Bethzatha, or told others what he ordered them not to tell, with the result that he himself became the leper, since he could not go into the towns or his enemies found reasons to condemn him. He healed people, forgave their sins, eased their suffering, gave them rest and made them feel the consoling breath of the Spirit.
In Buenos Aires I knew a Capuchin Friar. He is a little younger than I am and a great confessor. There is always a line before his confessional, lots of people confessing all day long. He is really good at forgiving. He forgives, but every once in a while he has scruples about being so forgiving. Once in conversation he told me: Sometimes I have scruples. So I asked him: What do you do when you have these scruples? He replied: I go before the tabernacle, I look at our Lord and I tell him, ‘Lord, forgive me, today I was very forgiving. But let’s be clear, it is all your fault, because you gave me bad example!' He added mercy to mercy.
Lastly, as far as confession is concerned, I have two bits of advice. First, never look like a bureaucrat or a judge, somebody who just sees cases to be dealt with. Mercy sets us free from being this kind of priest, who is so used to judging cases that he is no longer sensitive to persons, to faces. The rule of Jesus is to judge as we would be judged. This is the key to our judgement: that we treat others with dignity, that we don’t demean or mistreat them, that we help raise them up, and that we never forget that the Lord is using us, weak as we are, as his instruments. Not necessarily because our judgement is the best, but because it is sincere and can build a good relationship.
My other bit of advice is not to be curious in the confessional. Saint Therese tells us that when her novices would confide in her, she was very careful not to ask how things turned out. She did not pry into people’s souls (cf History of a Soul, Ms C, to Mother Gonzaga, c. XII, 32r.). It is characteristic of mercy to cover sin with its cloak, so as not to wound people’s dignity. Like the two sons of Noah, who covered the nakedness of their father with a cloak in his drunkenness (cf. Gen 9:23).
The social dimension of the works of mercy
At the end of the Exercises, Saint Ignatius puts contemplation to attain love, which connects what is experienced in prayer to daily life. He makes us reflect on how love has to be put more into works than into words. Those works are the works of mercy which the Father prepared beforehand to be our way of life (Eph 2:10), those which the Spirit inspires in each for the common good (cf 1 Cor 12:7). In thanking the Lord for all the gifts we have received from his bounty, we ask for the grace to bring to all mankind that mercy which has been our own salvation.
I propose that we meditate on one of the final paragraphs of the Gospels. There, the Lord himself makes tet connection between what we have received and what we are called to give. We can read these conclusions in the key of works of mercy which bring about the time of the Church, the time in which the risen Jesus lives, guides, sends forth and appeals to our freedom, which finds in him its concrete daily realization.
Matthew tells us that the Lord sends his Apostles to make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded (28:20). This instructing the ignorant is itself one of the works of mercy. It spreads like light to the other works: to those listed in Matthew 25, which deal more with the so-called corporal works of mercy, and to all the commandments and evangelical counsels, such as forgiving, fraternally correcting, consoling the sorrowing, and enduring persecution.
Mark’s Gospel ends with the image of the Lord who collaborates with the Apostles and confirms the word by the signs that accompany it. Those signs greatly resemble the works of mercy. Mark speaks, among other things, of healing the sick and casting out demons (cf Mk 16:17-18).
Luke continues his Gospel with the Acts - praxeis - of the Apostles, relating the history of how they acted and the works they did, led by the Spirit.
John’s Gospel ends by referring to the many other things (Jn 21:25) or signs (Jn 20:30) which Jesus performed. The Lord’s actions, his works, are not mere deeds but signs by which, in a completely personal way, he shows his love and his mercy for each person. We can contemplate the Lord who sends us on this mission, by using the image of the merciful Jesus as revealed to Sister Faustina. In that image we can see mercy as a single ray of light that comes from deep within God, passes through the heart of Christ, and emerges in a diversity of colours, each representing a work of mercy.
The works of mercy are endless, but each bears the stamp of a particular face, a personal history. They are much more than the lists of the seven corporal and seven spiritual works of mercy. Those lists are like the raw material – the material of life itself – that, worked and shaped by the hands of mercy, turns into an individual artistic creation. Each work multiplies like the bread in the baskets; each gives abundant growth like the mustard seed. For mercy is fruitful and inclusive.
We usually think of the works of mercy individually and in relation to a specific initiative: hospitals for the sick, soup kitchens for the hungry, shelters for the homeless, schools for those to be educated, the confessional and spiritual direction for those needing counsel and forgiveness ... But if we look at the works of mercy as a whole, we see that the object of mercy is human life itself and everything it embraces. Life itself, as flesh, hungers and thirsts; it needs to be clothed, given shelter and visited, to say nothing of receiving a proper burial, something none of us, however rich, can do for ourselves. Even the wealthiest person, in death, becomes a pauper; there are no moving vans in a funeral cortege. Life itself, as spirit, needs to be educated, corrected, encouraged and consoled. We need others to counsel us, to forgive us, to put up with us and to pray for us. The family is where these works of mercy are practiced in so normal and unpretentious a way that we don’t even realize it. Yet once a family with small children loses its mother, everything begins to fall apart. The cruelest and most relentless form of poverty is that of street children, without parents who fall prey to the vultures.
We have asked for the grace to be signs and instruments. Now we have to act, not only with gestures, but with projects and structures, by creating a culture of mercy. Once we begin, we sense immediately that the Spirit energizes and sustains these works. He does this by using the signs and instruments he wants, even if at times they do not appear to be the most suitable ones. It could even be said that, in order to carry out the works of mercy, the Spirit tends to choose the poorest, humblest and most insignificant instruments, those who themselves most need that first ray of divine mercy. They are the ones who can best be shaped and readied to serve most effectively and well. The joy of realizing that we are useless servants whom the Lord blesses with the fruitfulness of his grace, seats at his table and serves with the Eucharist, is a confirmation that we are engaged in his works of mercy.
Our faithful people are happy to congregate around works of mercy. In penitential and festive celebrations, and in educational and charitable activities, our people willingly come together and let themselves be shepherded in ways that are not always recognized or appreciated, whereas so many of our more abstract and academic pastoral plans fail to work. The massive presence of our faithful people in our shrines and on our pilgrimages is an anonymous presence, but anonymous simply because it is made up of so many faces and so great a desire simply to be gazed upon with mercy by Jesus and Mary. The same can be said about the countless ways in which our people take part in countless initiatives of solidarity; this too needs to be recognized, appreciated and promoted on our part.
As priests, we ask two graces of the Good Shepherd, that of letting ourselves be guided by the sensus fidei of our faithful people, and to be guided by their sense of the poor. Both these senses have to do with the sensus Christi, with our people’s love for, and faith in Jesus.
Let us conclude by reciting the Anima Christi, that beautiful prayer which implores mercy from the Lord who came among us in the flesh and graciously feeds us with his body and blood. We ask him to show mercy to us and to his people. We ask his soul to sanctify us, his body to save us, his blood to inebriate us and to remove from us all other thirsts that are not of him. We ask the water flowing from his side to wash us, his passion to strengthen us. Comfort your people, crucified Lord! May your wounds shelter us ... Grant that your people, Lord, may never be parted from you. Let nothing and no one separate us from your mercy, which defends us from the snares of the wicked enemy. Thus, we will sing your mercies, Lord, with all your saints when you bid us come to you.
I have heard occasional comments from priests who say: But this Pope beats us up too much, he scolds us. And there is some blame there, and some beating. But I have to say that I have been impressed by so many priests, many good priests! By some - who I have known - who, when there was no answering machine, would sleep with the telephone on the night table, and no one died without receiving the sacraments; they would call at all hours, and these priests would get up and go. Good priests! I thank the Lord for this grace. We are all sinners, but we can say that there are many good, holy priests who work in silence and in hidden ways. At times there are scandals, but we know that there is more noise from one tree that falls in the forest than from an entire forest of trees growing.
Yesterday, I received a letter, I left it there, with some personal correspondence. I opened it before coming here, and I believe that it was the Lord who prompted me to do so. It was from an Italian pastor, a pastor of three small parishes. I believe that it would be good for all of us to hear this witness that comes from one of our brothers.
It was written on 29 May, just a few days ago.
Excuse the disturbance. I take this opportunity to write to a priest friend who in these days finds himself in Rome for the Jubilee of Priests, to send him - without any pretence - from a simple pastor of three small parishes in the mountains; I prefer to refer to myself as a shepherd - some considerations concerning my simple pastoral service, in response to - thank you very much - some things that you have said and that call me each day to a conversion. I understand that what I write is nothing new. You have certainly heard these things before, however I also feel the need to present myself as a spokesman. It struck me, the invitation that you have often offered to us pastors to have the smell of the sheep. I am in the mountains and I know very well what you mean: that we become priests in order to know the smell, which is the true perfume of the flock. It would be truly beautiful if we had daily contact and frequent encounters with our flock, the real reason for our calling, and if it were not replaced by administrative duties and the bureaucratic responsibilities of the parishes, by schools for children and other things. I have the great fortune to have some good and valued lay people who take care of these things, but there are still juridical requirements for the pastor, who is the one and only legal representative. So, in the end, it is he who must run everywhere: sometimes to visit the sick, and with families. There never seems to be enough time. I say this in the first person, sometimes it is truly frustrating to know how in my life as a priest I run so much because of bureaucratic and administrative things, and leave the people, the little flock that has been confided to me, almost abandoned and left on their own. Believe me, Holy Father, it is sad and many times I cry for these poor people. I seek to organize things well, but in the end it just seems to be a series of daily tasks. And there is another thing, also recalled by you: paternal care. It is said that in today's society, we are lacking fathers and mothers. It seems to me that sometimes we give up on spiritual paternity, brutally reducing ourselves to holy bureaucrats, with the sad consequence of feeling abandoned unto ourselves. This is a difficult paternity which is then inevitably passed on to our superiors, who are also understandably taken up with their own tasks and problems, and therefore they risk reducing their relationships with us to formalities, tied to the oversight of the community, more than being concerned about our lives as men, as believers and as priests. All this - and I shall conclude here - does not however take away the joy and the passion of being a priest for the people and with the people. If at times as a pastor, I do not have the scent of the sheep, I am always inspired by the flock that has never lost the scent of its shepherd. How beautiful it is, Holy Father, when you realize that the sheep do not leave us alone, they have the pulse of our being there for them, and if on occasion, the shepherd should lose the trail and get lost, they grab on to him and hold him by the hand. I never stop thanking the Lord, because he never stops saving us by means of his flock, the flock that has been entrusted to us, these simple people, good, humble and serene, this flock that is the true grace of its pastor. Confidentially, I send these few and simple considerations, because you are close to your flock, capable of understanding us and continuing to help and sustain us. I pray for you and I thank you also for the little 'tugs at my ear' that I feel are so necessary for my journey. Bless me, Pope Francis, and pray for me and for my parishioners.
He signs it and at the end he adds another thing that is characteristic of a pastor: I leave you this offering. Pray for my community, especially for those who are gravely ill and for some of the families who are having financial difficulty, and they are not alone. Thank you.
This is one of our brothers. There are many others just like him, so many! Even here, in this church, I'm sure of it. Many. They show us the way, and let's go! Never neglect prayer. Pray whenever you can, and if you fall asleep in front of the tabernacle, blessed are you. But pray. Don't forget this. Don't forget to allow yourself to be guided by Our Lady and look to her, your Mother. Don't lose your zeal, seek ways to do ... Don't lose your closeness and availability to the people and also, if you will permit me, don't lose your sense of humor. Let's go!
The entire retreat has been preached today by the Pope and was followed by teleconference by priests in all three of the locations set aside, including the Basilicae of Saint John in Lateran and Saint Mary Major.
Third meditation of His Holiness, Pope Francis
The good odour of Christ and the light of his mercy
We hope that the Lord will grant us what we have asked for in prayer: to imitate Jesus' example of patience, and with patience, overcome difficulties.
This third meditation is entitled: The good odour of Christ and the light of his mercy.
In this, our third meeting, I propose that we meditate on the works of mercy, by taking whichever one we feel is most closely linked to our charism, and by looking at them as a whole. We can contemplate them through the merciful eyes of Our Lady, who helps us to find the wine that is lacking and encourages us to do whatever Jesus tells us (cf Jn 2:1-12), so that his mercy can work the miracles that our people need.
The works of mercy are closely linked to the spiritual senses. In our prayer we ask for the grace to be able to feel and savour the Gospel so that it can make us more sensitive in our lives. Moved by the Spirit and led by Jesus, we can see from afar, with the eyes of mercy, those who have fallen along the wayside. We can hear the cries of Bartimaeus and feel with Jesus the timid yet determined touch of the woman suffering from haemorrhage, as she grasps his robe. We can ask for the grace to taste with the crucified Jesus the bitter gall of all those who share in his cross, and smell the stench of misery - in field hospitals, in trains and in boats crammed with people. The balm of mercy does not disguise this stench. Rather, by anointing it, it awakens new hope.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in discussing the works of mercy, tells us that when her mother reproached her for care for the poor and the sick at home, Saint Rose of Lima said to her: ‘When we serve the poor and the sick, we are the good odour of Christ’ (No. 2449, Latin). That good odour of Christ – the care of the poor – is, and always has been, the hallmark of the Church. Paul made it the focus of his meeting with Peter, James and John, the pillars of the Church. He tells us that they asked only one thing, that we remember the poor (Gal 2:10). The Catechism goes on to say, significantly, that those who are oppressed by poverty are the object of a preferential love on the part of the Church, which from her origins, and in spite of the failings of many of her members, has not ceased to work for their relief, defence and liberation (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2448).
In the Church we have, and have always had, our sins and failings. But when it comes to serving the poor through the works of mercy, as a Church we have always followed the promptings of the Spirit. Our saints did this in quite creative and effective ways. Love for the poor has been the sign, the light that draws people to give glory to the Father. Our people value this in a priest who cares for the poor and the sick, for those whose sins he forgives and for those whom he patiently teaches and corrects ... Our people forgive us priests many failings, except for that of attachment to money. This does not have so much to do with money itself, but the fact that money makes us lose the treasure of mercy. Our people can sniff out which sins are truly grave for a priest, the sins that kill his ministry because they turn him into a bureaucrat or, even worse, a mercenary. They can also recognize which sins are, I won’t say secondary, but that have to be put up with, borne like a cross, until the Lord at last burns them away like the chaff. But the failure of a priest to be merciful is a glaring contradiction. It strikes at the heart of salvation, against Christ, who became poor so that by his poverty we might become rich (cf 2 Cor 8:9). Because mercy heals by losing something of itself. We feel a pang of regret and we lose a part of our life, because rather than do what we wanted to do, we reached out to someone else.
So it is not about God showing me mercy for this or that sin, as if I were otherwise self-sufficient, or about us performing some act of mercy towards this or that person in need. The grace we seek in this prayer is that of letting ourselves be shown mercy by God in every aspect of our lives and in turn to show mercy to others in all that we do. As priests and bishops, we work with the sacraments: baptizing, hearing confessions, celebrating the Eucharist ... Mercy is our way of making the entire life of God’s people a sacrament. Being merciful is not only a way of life, but the way of life. There is no other way of being a priest. Father Brochero, soon to be canonized, put it this way: The priest who has scarce pity for sinners is only half a priest. These vestments I wear are not what make me a priest; if I don’t have charity in my heart, I am not even a Christian.
To see needs and to bring immediate relief, and even more, to anticipate those needs: this is the mark of a father’s gaze. This priestly gaze – which takes the place of the father in the heart of Mother Church – makes us see people with the eyes of mercy. It has to be learned from seminary on, and it must enrich all our pastoral plans and projects. We desire, and we ask the Lord to give us, a gaze capable of discerning the signs of the times, to know what works of mercy our people need today in order to feel and savour the God of history who walks among them. For, as Aparecida says, quoting Saint Alberto Hurtado: In our works, our people know that we understand their suffering (Aparecida Document, 386).
The proof that we understand is that our works of mercy are blessed by God and meet with help and cooperation from our people. Some plans and projects do not work out well, without people ever realizing why. They rack their brains trying to come up with yet another pastoral plan, when all somebody has to say is: It’s not working because it lacks mercy, with no further ado. If it is not blessed, it is because it lacks mercy. It lacks the mercy found in a field hospital, not in expensive clinics; it lacks the mercy that values goodness and opens the door to an encounter with God, rather than turning someone away with sharp criticism.
I am going to propose a prayer about the woman whose sins were forgiven (Jn 8:3-11), to ask for the grace to be merciful in the confessional, and another prayer about the social dimension of the works of mercy. I have always been struck by the passage of the Lord’s encounter with the woman caught in adultery, and how, by refusing to condemn her, he fell short of the Law. In response to the question they asked to test him – should she be stoned or not? – he did not rule, he did not apply the law. He played dumb, and then turned to something else. He thus initiated a process in the heart of the woman who needed to hear those words: Neither do I condemn you. He stretched out his hand and helped her to her feet, letting her see a gentle gaze that changed her heart.
Sometimes I feel a little saddened and annoyed when people go straight to the last words Jesus speaks to her: Go and sin no more. They use these words to defend Jesus from bypassing the law. I believe that Christ’s words are at peace with his actions. He bends down to write on the ground as a prelude to what he is about to say to those who want to stone the woman, and he does so again before talking to her. This tells us something about the time that the Lord takes in judging and forgiving. The time he gives each person to look into his or her own heart and then to walk away. In talking to the woman, the Lord opens other spaces: one is that of non-condemnation. The Gospel clearly mentions this open space. It makes us see things through the eyes of Jesus, who tells us: I see no one else but this woman.
Then Jesus makes the woman herself look around. He asks her: Where are those who condemned you? (The word condemn is itself important, since it is about what we find unacceptable about those who judge or characterize us ...). Once he has opened this space before her eyes, freed of other people’s judgements, he tells her that neither will he throw a stone there: Nor do I condemn you. Then he opens up another free space before her: Go and sin no more. His command has to do with the future, to help her to make a new start and to walk in love. Such is the sensitivity of mercy: it looks with compassion on the past and offers encouragement for the future.
Those words, Go and sin no more are not easy. The Lord says them with her. He helps her put into words what she herself feels, a free no to sin that is like Mary’s yes to grace. That no has to be said to the deeply-rooted sin present in everyone. In that woman, it was a social sin; people approached her either to sleep with her or to throw stones at her. That is why the Lord does not only clear the path before her, but sets her on her way, so that she can stop being the object of other people's gaze and instead take control of her life. Those words, sin no more refer not only to morality, but, I believe, to a kind of sin that keeps her from living her life. Jesus also told the paralytic at Bethzatha to sin no more (Jn 5:14). But that man had justified himself with all the sad things that had happened to him; he suffered from a victim complex. So Jesus challenged him ever so slightly by saying: ... lest something worse happen to you. The Lord took advantage of his way of thinking, his fears, to draw him out of his paralysis. He gave him a little scare, we might say. The point is that each of us has to hear the words sin no more in his own deeply personal way.
This image of the Lord who sets people on their way is very typical. He is the God who walks at his people’s side, who leads them forward, who accompanies our history. Hence, the object of his mercy is quite clear: it is everything that keeps a man or a woman from walking on the right path, with their own people, at their own pace, to where God is asking them to go. What troubles him is that people get lost, or fall behind, or try to go it on their own. That they end up nowhere. That they are not there for the Lord, ready to go wherever he wants to send them. That they do not walk humbly before him (cf Mic 6:8), that they do not walk in love (cf Eph 5:2).
The space of the confessional, where the truth makes us free
Speaking of space, let us go to the confessional. The Catechism of the Catholic Church presents the confessional as the place where the truth makes us free for an encounter. When he celebrates the sacrament of penance, the priest is fulfilling the ministry of the Good Shepherd who seeks the lost sheep, of the Good Samaritan who binds up wounds, of the Father who awaits the prodigal son and welcomes him on his return, and of the just and impartial Judge whose judgement is both just and merciful. The priest is the sign and the instrument of God’s merciful love for the sinner (CIC, 1465). The Catechism also reminds us that the confessor is not the master of God's forgiveness but its servant. The minister of this sacrament should unite himself to the intention and charity of Christ (CIC, 1466).
Signs and instruments of an encounter. That is what we are. An attractive invitation to an encounter. As signs, we must be welcoming, sending a message that attracts people’s attention. Signs need to be consistent and clear, but above all understandable. Some signs are only clear to specialists. Signs and instruments. Instruments have to be effective, readily available, precise and suitable for the job. We are instruments if people have a genuine encounter with the God of mercy. Our task is to make that encounter possible, face-to-face. What people do afterwards is their business. There is a prodigal son among the pigs and a father who goes out every afternoon to see if he is returning. There is a lost sheep and a shepherd who goes out to seek him. There is a wounded person left at the roadside and a good-hearted Samaritan. What is our ministry? It is to be signs and instruments enabling this encounter. Let us always remember that we are not the father, the shepherd or the Samaritan. Rather, inasmuch as we are sinners, we are on the side of the other three. Our ministry has to be a sign and instrument of that encounter. We are part of the mystery of the Holy Spirit, who creates the Church, builds unity, and constantly invites us to encounter.
The other mark of a sign and instrument is that it is not self-referential. Put more simply, it is not an end in itself. Nobody sticks with the sign once they understand the reality. Nobody keeps looking at the screwdriver or the hammer, but at the well-hung picture. We are useless servants. Instruments and signs that help two people to join in an embrace, like the father and his son.
The third mark of a sign and instrument is its availability. An instrument has to be readily accessible; a sign must be visible. Being a sign and instrument is about being a mediator. Perhaps this is the real key to our own mission in this merciful encounter of God and man. We could even put it in negative terms. Saint Ignatius talked about not getting in the way. A good mediator makes things easy, rather than setting up obstacles. In my country, there was a great confessor, Father Cullen. He would sit in the confessional and do one of two things: he would repair worn soccer balls for the local kids, or he would thumb through a big Chinese dictionary. He used to say that when people saw him doing such completely useless things like fixing old soccer balls or trying to master Chinese, they would think: I’m going to go up and talk to this priest, since he obviously doesn’t have much to do! He was available for what was essential. He got rid of the obstacle of always looking busy and serious.
Everybody has known good confessors. We have to learn from our good confessors, the ones who people seek out, who do not make them afraid but help them to speak frankly, as Jesus did with Nicodemus. If people come to confession it is because they are penitent; repentance is already present. They come to confession because they want to change. Or at least they want to want to change, if they think their situation is impossible. Ad impossibilia nemo tenetur, as the old maxim goes: no one is obliged to do the impossible.
We have to learn from good confessors, those who are gentle with sinners, who after a couple of words understand everything, as Jesus did with the woman suffering from a haemorrhage, and straightaway the power of forgiveness goes forth from them. The integrity of confession is not a mathematics problem. Sometimes people feel less shame in confessing a sin than in stating the number of times they committed it. We have to let ourselves be moved by people’s situation, which at times is a mixture of their own doing, human weakness, sin and insufferable conditionings. We have to be like Jesus, who was deeply moved by the sight of people and their problems, and kept healing them, even when they didn’t ask properly, like that leper who seemed to beat around the bush, or like the Samaritan woman. She was like a bird we have in South America: she squawked in one place but had her nest in another.
We have to learn from confessors who can enable penitents to feel amendment in taking a small step forwards, like Jesus, who gave a suitable penance and could appreciate the one leper who returned to thank him, on whom he bestowed yet more. Jesus had his mat taken away from the paralytic, and he made the blind man and the Syro-Phoenician woman have to ask. It didn’t matter to him if they paid no attention to him, like the paralytic at the pool of Bethzatha, or told others what he ordered them not to tell, with the result that he himself became the leper, since he could not go into the towns or his enemies found reasons to condemn him. He healed people, forgave their sins, eased their suffering, gave them rest and made them feel the consoling breath of the Spirit.
In Buenos Aires I knew a Capuchin Friar. He is a little younger than I am and a great confessor. There is always a line before his confessional, lots of people confessing all day long. He is really good at forgiving. He forgives, but every once in a while he has scruples about being so forgiving. Once in conversation he told me: Sometimes I have scruples. So I asked him: What do you do when you have these scruples? He replied: I go before the tabernacle, I look at our Lord and I tell him, ‘Lord, forgive me, today I was very forgiving. But let’s be clear, it is all your fault, because you gave me bad example!' He added mercy to mercy.
Lastly, as far as confession is concerned, I have two bits of advice. First, never look like a bureaucrat or a judge, somebody who just sees cases to be dealt with. Mercy sets us free from being this kind of priest, who is so used to judging cases that he is no longer sensitive to persons, to faces. The rule of Jesus is to judge as we would be judged. This is the key to our judgement: that we treat others with dignity, that we don’t demean or mistreat them, that we help raise them up, and that we never forget that the Lord is using us, weak as we are, as his instruments. Not necessarily because our judgement is the best, but because it is sincere and can build a good relationship.
My other bit of advice is not to be curious in the confessional. Saint Therese tells us that when her novices would confide in her, she was very careful not to ask how things turned out. She did not pry into people’s souls (cf History of a Soul, Ms C, to Mother Gonzaga, c. XII, 32r.). It is characteristic of mercy to cover sin with its cloak, so as not to wound people’s dignity. Like the two sons of Noah, who covered the nakedness of their father with a cloak in his drunkenness (cf. Gen 9:23).
The social dimension of the works of mercy
At the end of the Exercises, Saint Ignatius puts contemplation to attain love, which connects what is experienced in prayer to daily life. He makes us reflect on how love has to be put more into works than into words. Those works are the works of mercy which the Father prepared beforehand to be our way of life (Eph 2:10), those which the Spirit inspires in each for the common good (cf 1 Cor 12:7). In thanking the Lord for all the gifts we have received from his bounty, we ask for the grace to bring to all mankind that mercy which has been our own salvation.
I propose that we meditate on one of the final paragraphs of the Gospels. There, the Lord himself makes tet connection between what we have received and what we are called to give. We can read these conclusions in the key of works of mercy which bring about the time of the Church, the time in which the risen Jesus lives, guides, sends forth and appeals to our freedom, which finds in him its concrete daily realization.
Matthew tells us that the Lord sends his Apostles to make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded (28:20). This instructing the ignorant is itself one of the works of mercy. It spreads like light to the other works: to those listed in Matthew 25, which deal more with the so-called corporal works of mercy, and to all the commandments and evangelical counsels, such as forgiving, fraternally correcting, consoling the sorrowing, and enduring persecution.
Mark’s Gospel ends with the image of the Lord who collaborates with the Apostles and confirms the word by the signs that accompany it. Those signs greatly resemble the works of mercy. Mark speaks, among other things, of healing the sick and casting out demons (cf Mk 16:17-18).
Luke continues his Gospel with the Acts - praxeis - of the Apostles, relating the history of how they acted and the works they did, led by the Spirit.
John’s Gospel ends by referring to the many other things (Jn 21:25) or signs (Jn 20:30) which Jesus performed. The Lord’s actions, his works, are not mere deeds but signs by which, in a completely personal way, he shows his love and his mercy for each person. We can contemplate the Lord who sends us on this mission, by using the image of the merciful Jesus as revealed to Sister Faustina. In that image we can see mercy as a single ray of light that comes from deep within God, passes through the heart of Christ, and emerges in a diversity of colours, each representing a work of mercy.
The works of mercy are endless, but each bears the stamp of a particular face, a personal history. They are much more than the lists of the seven corporal and seven spiritual works of mercy. Those lists are like the raw material – the material of life itself – that, worked and shaped by the hands of mercy, turns into an individual artistic creation. Each work multiplies like the bread in the baskets; each gives abundant growth like the mustard seed. For mercy is fruitful and inclusive.
We usually think of the works of mercy individually and in relation to a specific initiative: hospitals for the sick, soup kitchens for the hungry, shelters for the homeless, schools for those to be educated, the confessional and spiritual direction for those needing counsel and forgiveness ... But if we look at the works of mercy as a whole, we see that the object of mercy is human life itself and everything it embraces. Life itself, as flesh, hungers and thirsts; it needs to be clothed, given shelter and visited, to say nothing of receiving a proper burial, something none of us, however rich, can do for ourselves. Even the wealthiest person, in death, becomes a pauper; there are no moving vans in a funeral cortege. Life itself, as spirit, needs to be educated, corrected, encouraged and consoled. We need others to counsel us, to forgive us, to put up with us and to pray for us. The family is where these works of mercy are practiced in so normal and unpretentious a way that we don’t even realize it. Yet once a family with small children loses its mother, everything begins to fall apart. The cruelest and most relentless form of poverty is that of street children, without parents who fall prey to the vultures.
We have asked for the grace to be signs and instruments. Now we have to act, not only with gestures, but with projects and structures, by creating a culture of mercy. Once we begin, we sense immediately that the Spirit energizes and sustains these works. He does this by using the signs and instruments he wants, even if at times they do not appear to be the most suitable ones. It could even be said that, in order to carry out the works of mercy, the Spirit tends to choose the poorest, humblest and most insignificant instruments, those who themselves most need that first ray of divine mercy. They are the ones who can best be shaped and readied to serve most effectively and well. The joy of realizing that we are useless servants whom the Lord blesses with the fruitfulness of his grace, seats at his table and serves with the Eucharist, is a confirmation that we are engaged in his works of mercy.
Our faithful people are happy to congregate around works of mercy. In penitential and festive celebrations, and in educational and charitable activities, our people willingly come together and let themselves be shepherded in ways that are not always recognized or appreciated, whereas so many of our more abstract and academic pastoral plans fail to work. The massive presence of our faithful people in our shrines and on our pilgrimages is an anonymous presence, but anonymous simply because it is made up of so many faces and so great a desire simply to be gazed upon with mercy by Jesus and Mary. The same can be said about the countless ways in which our people take part in countless initiatives of solidarity; this too needs to be recognized, appreciated and promoted on our part.
As priests, we ask two graces of the Good Shepherd, that of letting ourselves be guided by the sensus fidei of our faithful people, and to be guided by their sense of the poor. Both these senses have to do with the sensus Christi, with our people’s love for, and faith in Jesus.
Let us conclude by reciting the Anima Christi, that beautiful prayer which implores mercy from the Lord who came among us in the flesh and graciously feeds us with his body and blood. We ask him to show mercy to us and to his people. We ask his soul to sanctify us, his body to save us, his blood to inebriate us and to remove from us all other thirsts that are not of him. We ask the water flowing from his side to wash us, his passion to strengthen us. Comfort your people, crucified Lord! May your wounds shelter us ... Grant that your people, Lord, may never be parted from you. Let nothing and no one separate us from your mercy, which defends us from the snares of the wicked enemy. Thus, we will sing your mercies, Lord, with all your saints when you bid us come to you.
I have heard occasional comments from priests who say: But this Pope beats us up too much, he scolds us. And there is some blame there, and some beating. But I have to say that I have been impressed by so many priests, many good priests! By some - who I have known - who, when there was no answering machine, would sleep with the telephone on the night table, and no one died without receiving the sacraments; they would call at all hours, and these priests would get up and go. Good priests! I thank the Lord for this grace. We are all sinners, but we can say that there are many good, holy priests who work in silence and in hidden ways. At times there are scandals, but we know that there is more noise from one tree that falls in the forest than from an entire forest of trees growing.
Yesterday, I received a letter, I left it there, with some personal correspondence. I opened it before coming here, and I believe that it was the Lord who prompted me to do so. It was from an Italian pastor, a pastor of three small parishes. I believe that it would be good for all of us to hear this witness that comes from one of our brothers.
It was written on 29 May, just a few days ago.
Excuse the disturbance. I take this opportunity to write to a priest friend who in these days finds himself in Rome for the Jubilee of Priests, to send him - without any pretence - from a simple pastor of three small parishes in the mountains; I prefer to refer to myself as a shepherd - some considerations concerning my simple pastoral service, in response to - thank you very much - some things that you have said and that call me each day to a conversion. I understand that what I write is nothing new. You have certainly heard these things before, however I also feel the need to present myself as a spokesman. It struck me, the invitation that you have often offered to us pastors to have the smell of the sheep. I am in the mountains and I know very well what you mean: that we become priests in order to know the smell, which is the true perfume of the flock. It would be truly beautiful if we had daily contact and frequent encounters with our flock, the real reason for our calling, and if it were not replaced by administrative duties and the bureaucratic responsibilities of the parishes, by schools for children and other things. I have the great fortune to have some good and valued lay people who take care of these things, but there are still juridical requirements for the pastor, who is the one and only legal representative. So, in the end, it is he who must run everywhere: sometimes to visit the sick, and with families. There never seems to be enough time. I say this in the first person, sometimes it is truly frustrating to know how in my life as a priest I run so much because of bureaucratic and administrative things, and leave the people, the little flock that has been confided to me, almost abandoned and left on their own. Believe me, Holy Father, it is sad and many times I cry for these poor people. I seek to organize things well, but in the end it just seems to be a series of daily tasks. And there is another thing, also recalled by you: paternal care. It is said that in today's society, we are lacking fathers and mothers. It seems to me that sometimes we give up on spiritual paternity, brutally reducing ourselves to holy bureaucrats, with the sad consequence of feeling abandoned unto ourselves. This is a difficult paternity which is then inevitably passed on to our superiors, who are also understandably taken up with their own tasks and problems, and therefore they risk reducing their relationships with us to formalities, tied to the oversight of the community, more than being concerned about our lives as men, as believers and as priests. All this - and I shall conclude here - does not however take away the joy and the passion of being a priest for the people and with the people. If at times as a pastor, I do not have the scent of the sheep, I am always inspired by the flock that has never lost the scent of its shepherd. How beautiful it is, Holy Father, when you realize that the sheep do not leave us alone, they have the pulse of our being there for them, and if on occasion, the shepherd should lose the trail and get lost, they grab on to him and hold him by the hand. I never stop thanking the Lord, because he never stops saving us by means of his flock, the flock that has been entrusted to us, these simple people, good, humble and serene, this flock that is the true grace of its pastor. Confidentially, I send these few and simple considerations, because you are close to your flock, capable of understanding us and continuing to help and sustain us. I pray for you and I thank you also for the little 'tugs at my ear' that I feel are so necessary for my journey. Bless me, Pope Francis, and pray for me and for my parishioners.
He signs it and at the end he adds another thing that is characteristic of a pastor: I leave you this offering. Pray for my community, especially for those who are gravely ill and for some of the families who are having financial difficulty, and they are not alone. Thank you.
This is one of our brothers. There are many others just like him, so many! Even here, in this church, I'm sure of it. Many. They show us the way, and let's go! Never neglect prayer. Pray whenever you can, and if you fall asleep in front of the tabernacle, blessed are you. But pray. Don't forget this. Don't forget to allow yourself to be guided by Our Lady and look to her, your Mother. Don't lose your zeal, seek ways to do ... Don't lose your closeness and availability to the people and also, if you will permit me, don't lose your sense of humor. Let's go!
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