The Name of God Is Mercy

by Pope Francis

The fragility of our era is this, too: we don’t believe that there is a chance for redemption; for a hand to raise you up; for an embrace to save you, forgive you, pick you up, flood you with infinite, patient, indulgent love; to put you back on your feet. We need mercy. We need to ask ourselves why today so many people, men and women, young and old, of every social class, go to psychics and fortune-tellers. Cardinal Giacomo Biffi used to quote these words by the English writer G. K. Chesterton: “When Man ceases to worship God he does not worship nothing but worships everything.” Once I heard a person say: In my grandmother’s time a confessor was enough, but today lots of people go to fortune-tellers. Today people try to find salvation wherever they can.

Every time I go through the gates into a prison to celebrate Mass or for a visit, I always think: Why them and not me? I should be here. I deserve to be here. Their fall could have been mine. I do not feel superior to the people who stand before me. And so I repeat and pray: Why him and not me? It might seem shocking, but I derive consolation from Peter: he betrayed Jesus, and even so he was chosen.

In order to be filled with his gift of infinite mercy, we need to recognize our need, our emptiness, our wretchedness. We cannot be arrogant.

His father was waiting for him, he had been staring out at the horizon waiting for his son’s return, and he approached his son even before the man could say anything; before he even confessed his sins, the man’s father hugged him. This is the love of God. This is his overabundant mercy.

I like to use the image of a field hospital to describe this “Church that goes forth”; it exists where there is combat, it is not a solid structure with all the equipment where people go to receive treatment for both small and large infirmities. It is a mobile structure that offers first aid and immediate care, so that its soldiers do not die. It’s a place for urgent care, not a place to see a specialist.

Mercy exists, but if you don’t want to receive it…If you don’t recognize yourself as a sinner, it means you don’t want to receive it, it means that you don’t feel the need for it. Sometimes it is hard to know exactly what happened. Sometimes you might feel skeptical and think it is impossible to get back on your feet again. Or maybe you prefer your wounds, the wounds of sin, and you behave like a dog, licking your wounds with your tongue. This is a narcissistic illness that makes people bitter. There is pleasure in feeling bitter, an unhealthy pleasure.

None of us should speak of injustice without thinking of all the injustice we have committed before God. We must never forget our origins, the mud of which we were made, and this counts above all for those who are ordained.

We need to enter the darkness, the night in which so many of our brothers live. We need to be able to make contact with them and let them feel our closeness, without letting ourselves be wrapped up in that darkness and influenced by it. Caring for outcasts and sinners does not mean letting the wolves attack the flock. It means trying to reach everyone by sharing the experience of mercy, which we ourselves have experienced, without ever caving in to the temptation of feeling that we are just or perfect. The more conscious we are of our wretchedness and our sins, the more we experience the love and infinite mercy of God among us, and the more capable we are of looking upon the many “wounded” we meet along the way with acceptance and mercy.

At times I have surprised myself by thinking that a few very rigid people would do well to slip a little, so that they could remember that they are sinners and thus meet Jesus.

John Paul I, who during a Wednesday audience said, “The Lord loves humility so much that sometimes he permits serious sins. Why? In order that those who committed these sins may, after repenting, remain humble. One does not feel inclined to think oneself half a saint, half an angel, when one knows that one has committed serious faults.”

Corruption leads people to lose the modesty that safeguards truth, goodness, and beauty. The corrupt man often doesn’t realize his own condition, much as a person with bad breath does not know they have it. And it’s not easy for the corrupt man to get out of this state by feeling inner remorse. Generally, the Lord saves him through life’s great ordeals, situations that he cannot avoid and which crack open the shell that he has gradually built up, thus allowing the Grace of God to enter.