Scottish Catholic Observer

An estimated 30,000 people gathered in St Peter’s Square for the jubilee audience, an event that will be held one Saturday each month throughout the Holy Year of Mercy.

In his talk, the Pope said the Holy Year is a reminder for Christians to never tire of feeling the need for God’s forgiveness ‘so that when we are weak his closeness makes us strong and allows us to live our faith with greater joy.’ Christians are called to be missionaries of the Gospel like the first disciples, feeling the need to share the good news they have received. “We feel within us that we cannot hold back the joy that has been given to us and we want to spread it,” the Pope said.

“The joy that arises is what pushes us to communicate it.”

The experience of the first disciples called by Jesus, he said, is an experience of love that ‘transforms us and compels us’ to share its strength with others.

God’s mercy is not just a ‘private consolation’ but a catalyst that transforms Christians into ‘missionaries of mercy’ to those in need. The Pope called on the faithful to take their calling seriously and to live their lives as believers “because only then can the Gospel touch the hearts of all people and open them to the grace of love.”

The theme of Mercy is one the Pope has heavily stressed lately, making it key to his official Lenten message. Lent is a time of conversion and a time to deepen one’s faith, demonstrating and sharing it through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, he said.

“Faith finds expression in concrete everyday actions meant to help our neighbours in body and spirit,” the Pope said.

Feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, welcoming strangers, offering instruction, giving comfort— ‘on such things will we be judged,’ the Pope wrote in the message, which was released at the Vatican at the end of January.

Particularly during the Year of Mercy, he said, Catholics are called to recognise their own need for God’s mercy, the greatness of God’s love seen in the death and resurrection of Christ and the obligation to assist others by communicating God’s love and mercy through words and deeds.

—This story ran in full in the February 5 edition print of the SCO, available in parishes.