A Word from Your Pastor - Sepember 20

Dear Parishioners:

The themes unfolding for this season in the life of our Parish and School are Faith, Family and Mercy.  This week, in anticipation of the Year of Mercy that begins December 8, I highlight the theme of Mercy.  This is especially timely since this week our nation welcomes the “Pope of Mercy,” Pope Francis, to our own cities of Washington, New York (including the United Nations), and Philadelphia.

Mercy is a word for our time.  Through the past century, the Church has begun ever more clearly to highlight this quality of God.  God offers us His Love.  When we reject it through sin and selfishness, He offers it again as Mercy.   This includes forgiveness of sin and an opening to a new and deeper experience of grace.  Mercy is an active, engaged attitude.  It is an opening to a new beginning, a concrete expression of trust on God’s part that we are willing to follow Him once we have been humbled to realize that we cannot do anything without Him.  God is merciful.  We are sinner, who do not deserve His Love, and yet He continues to offer us an invitation to a living relationship with Him.

Practically speaking, it is Mercy that shows us how to share God’s offer with the world.  The Works of Mercy, both corporal (bodily) and spiritual, are the “business” of the Church.  When we allow Mercy to flow through us, our own capacity to experience God’s Mercy grows.

This week, I invite you to open the eyes of Mercy as you look at all that is happening in our world and in the life of those around you.  If you have a heart ready to show mercy to others, God’s own Mercy will find a place in your heart and your life.  Listen to the Message of Mercy that Pope Francis speaks to us.

I offer three challenges to all in the experience of the Holy Father’s visit to our country:

1. Listen to his words and his message.  Don’t rely on the media’s spin of what he has to say.  Ask God to open your ears to hear.  I am sure that you will be able to find what Pope Francis says either at the Vatican website – www.vatican.va – or at the United States Bishops’ Conference site – www.ussccb.org.
   
   
2. Allow yourself to be “stung.”  If the message seems too easy, then you probably have not heard it.  The call for disciples is a call to conversion.  We have to change our minds and hearts, how we see, in light of the Gospel made practical for us.
   
   
3. Resolve to put into practice something you hear the Pope inviting you to do.  Be concrete.  Do it as a family.  Make a new commitment to be a witness to the Truth of the Gospel.
   
   

If we open our hearts, we will know Mercy all the more and we will grow as disciples of the Lord.