Top 10 Mercy Quotes of Pope Francis
EDITOR's NOTE: Only two months into his papacy, Pope Francis has been eminently quotable. We've culled a few of our favorite quotes. If you have any you'd like to share, please do so in the comments section below. Enjoy!
I think we too are the people who, on the one hand, want to listen to Jesus, but on the other hand, at times, like to find a stick to beat others with, to condemn others. And Jesus has this message for us: mercy. I think — and I say it with humility — that this is the Lord's most powerful message: mercy.
— Homily on March 17, 2013
It is not easy to entrust oneself to God's mercy, because it is an abyss beyond our comprehension. But we must! ... "Oh, I am a great sinner!" "All the better! Go to Jesus: He likes you to tell him these things!" He forgets, He has a very special capacity for forgetting. He forgets, He kisses you, He embraces you and He simply says to you: "Neither do I condemn you; go, and sin no more" (Jn 8:11).
— Homily on March 17, 2013
Jesus' attitude is striking: we do not hear the words of scorn, we do not hear words of condemnation, but only words of love, of mercy, which are an invitation to conversation. "Neither do I condemn you; go, and do not sin again." Ah! Brothers and Sisters, God's face is the face of a merciful father who is always patient. Have you thought about God's patience, the patience He has with each one of us? That is His mercy. He always has patience, patience with us, He understands us, He waits for us, He does not tire of forgiving us if we are able to return to Him with a contrite heart. "Great is God's mercy," says the Psalm.
— Angelus on March 17, 2013
In the past few days I have been reading a book by a Cardinal ... Cardinal Kasper said that feeling mercy, that this word changes everything. This is the best thing we can feel: it changes the world. A little mercy makes the world less cold and more just. We need to understand properly this mercy of God, this merciful Father who is so patient. ... Let us remember the Prophet Isaiah who says that even if our sins were scarlet, God's love would make them white as snow. This mercy is beautiful.
— Angelus on March 17, 2013
God's mercy can make even the driest land become a garden, can restore life to dry bones (cf. Ez 37:1-14). ... Let us be renewed by God's mercy, let us be loved by Jesus, let us enable the power of his love to transform our lives too; and let us become agents of this mercy, channels through which God can water the earth, protect all creation and make justice and peace flourish.
— Easter Urbi et Orbi message on March 31, 2013
Together let us pray to the Virgin Mary that she helps us ... to walk in faith and charity, ever trusting in the Lord's mercy; He always awaits us, loves us, has pardoned us with His Blood and pardons us every time we go to Him to ask His forgiveness. Let us trust in His mercy!
— Regina Caeli on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 7, 2013
In today's Gospel, the Apostle Thomas personally experiences this mercy of God. ... Thomas does not believe it when the other Apostles tell him: "We have seen the Lord." ... And how does Jesus react? With patience: Jesus does not abandon Thomas in his stubborn unbelief ... He does not close the door, He waits. And Thomas acknowledges his own poverty, his little faith. "My Lord and my God!": with this simple yet faith-filled invocation, he responds to Jesus' patience. He lets himself be enveloped by Divine Mercy; he sees it before his eyes, in the wounds of Christ's hands and feet and in His open side, and he discovers trust.
— Homily on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 7, 2013
Let us ... remember Peter: three times he denied Jesus, precisely when he should have been closest to him; and when he hits bottom he meets the gaze of Jesus who patiently, wordlessly, says to him: "Peter, don't be afraid of your weakness, trust in Me." Peter understands, he feels the loving gaze of Jesus and he weeps. How beautiful is this gaze of Jesus — how much tenderness is there! Brothers and sisters, let us never lose trust in the patience and mercy of God!
— Homily on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 7, 2013
I am always struck when I reread the parable of the merciful Father. ... The Father, with patience, love, hope and mercy, had never for a second stopped thinking about [his wayward son], and as soon as he sees him still far off, he runs out to meet him and embraces him with tenderness, the tenderness of God, without a word of reproach. ... God is always waiting for us, He never grows tired. Jesus shows us this merciful patience of God so that we can regain confidence and hope — always!
— Homily on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 7, 2013
God's patience has to call forth in us the courage to return to Him, however many mistakes and sins there may be in our life. ... It is there, in the wounds of Jesus, that we are truly secure; there we encounter the boundless love of His heart. Thomas understood this. Saint Bernard goes on to ask: But what can I count on? My own merits? No, "My merit is God's mercy. I am by no means lacking merits as long as He is rich in mercy. If the mercies of the Lord are manifold, I too will abound in merits." This is important: the courage to trust in Jesus' mercy, to trust in His patience, to seek refuge always in the wounds of His love.
— Homily on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 7, 2013
HOMILY OF POPE FRANCIS AT THE CANONIZATION OF SAINT TERESA OF CALCUTTA
04 - 09 - 2016
“Who can learn the counsel of God?” (Wis 9:13). This question from the Book of Wisdom that we have just heard in the first reading suggests that our life is a mystery and that we do not possess the key to understanding it.
There are always two protagonists in history: God and man. Our task is to perceive the call of God and then to do his will. But in order to do his will, we must ask ourselves, “What is God’s will in my life?”
We find the answer in the same passage of the Book of Wisdom: “People were taught what pleases you” (Wis 9:18). In order to ascertain the call of God, we must ask ourselves and understand what pleases God. On many occasions the prophets proclaimed what was pleasing to God. Their message found a wonderful synthesis in the words “I want mercy, not sacrifice” (Hos 6:6; Mt 9:13). God is pleased by every act of mercy, because in the brother or sister that we assist, we recognize the face of God which no one can see (cf. Jn 1:18). Each time we bend down to the needs of our brothers and sisters, we give Jesus something to eat and drink; we clothe, we help, and we visit the Son of God (cf. Mt 25:40).
We are thus called to translate into concrete acts that which we invoke in prayer and profess in faith. There is no alternative to charity: those who put themselves at the service of others, even when they don’t know it, are those who love God (cf. 1 Jn 3:16-18; Jas 2:14-18). The Christian life, however, is not merely extending a hand in times of need. If it is just this, it can be, certainly, a lovely expression of human solidarity which offers immediate benefits, but it is sterile because it lacks roots. The task which the Lord gives us, on the contrary, is the vocation to charity in which each of Christ’s disciples puts his or her entire life at his service, so to grow each day in love.
We heard in the Gospel, “Large crowds were travelling with Jesus” (Lk 14:25). Today, this “large crowd” is seen in the great number of volunteers who have come together for the Jubilee of Mercy. You are that crowd who follows the Master and who makes visible his concrete love for each person. I repeat to you the words of the Apostle Paul: “I have indeed received much joy and comfort from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you” (Philem 1:7). How many hearts have been comforted by volunteers! How many hands they have held; how many tears they have wiped away; how much love has been poured out in hidden, humble and selfless service! This praiseworthy service gives voice to the faith and expresses the mercy of the Father, who draws near to those in need.
Following Jesus is a serious task, and, at the same time, one filled with joy; it takes a certain daring and courage to recognise the divine Master in the poorest of the poor and to give oneself in their service. In order to do so, volunteers, who out of love of Jesus serve the poor and the needy, do not expect any thanks or recompense; rather they renounce all this because they have discovered true love. Just as the Lord has come to meet me and has stooped down to my level in my hour of need, so too do I go to meet him, bending low before those who have lost faith or who live as though God did not exist, before young people without values or ideals, before families in crisis, before the ill and the imprisoned, before refugees and immigrants, before the weak and defenceless in body and spirit, before abandoned children, before the elderly who are on their own. Wherever someone is reaching out, asking for a helping hand in order to get up, this is where our presence – and the presence of the Church which sustains and offers hope – must be.
Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C., a Missionary of Charity, was the official postulator for St. Teresa of Calcutta, who will be canonized on Sept. 4. He was the editor of the book of her letters and notebooks, Come Be My Light, which, in 2007, revealed Mother Teresa’s struggle with decades of interior darkness. Father Kolodiejchuk is also the editor of a new collection of her writings, A Call to Mercy, published this month by Image Books. In an interview with James Martin, S.J., in May, he spoke of her early mystical experiences and her struggles with the “dark night.”
James Martin: Father Brian, congratulations on the canonization of Mother Teresa. Can you tell us a little but about the final miracle attributed to her intercession?
Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C.: Yes, thank you. It happened, in Santos, Brazil. And, surprisingly, it happened in 2008, but we didn’t hear about, and no one contacted the postulation office until the end of 2013. By the time we got everything together and made an effort to get all the documents, it was finally approved this year.
JM: What was the miracle?
BK: It was a man who was around 35 years old and was a mechanical engineer. He had developed abscesses that came from having a bacterial infection on the brain.
That developed into multiple abscesses, which turned into hydrocephaly –water on the brain. So, roughly from September, right after his marriage, he and his wife were praying to Mother Teresa. And yet it kept on getting worse. Then on December 9th, around 2 in the morning, he really got very sick; he had very extreme pain on the brain from all the water putting pressure—because the water couldn’t go down the spine; it was being blocked. So he went into a coma and basically he was on his way out.
Now they wanted to do an operation to drain the water but they couldn’t, for some technical reasons. Finally, he was dying and they had brought him to the operating room, but they realize that they didn’t have the right equipment. So around 6:10 the neurosurgeon walked out of the operating room without any hope.
At the same time, around 6 P.M., his wife, knowing the grave situation, went to her parish about to pray really intensely, again to Mother Teresa. At that time the parish priest came in. So they started praying around 6.
At 6:40, when the doctor came back into the operating room, Marcilio [Haddad Andrino], which was his name, was conscious, without any pain, and then he looked around and asked the doctor, “Well, what am I doing here?”
Saint of the Darkness—
The Full Interview
Sep 1 2016 - 1:38pm | James Martin, S.J.
The full interview with Mother Teresa’s postulator
my source: AmericaBrian Kolodiejchuk, M.C., a Missionary of Charity, was the official postulator for St. Teresa of Calcutta, who will be canonized on Sept. 4. He was the editor of the book of her letters and notebooks, Come Be My Light, which, in 2007, revealed Mother Teresa’s struggle with decades of interior darkness. Father Kolodiejchuk is also the editor of a new collection of her writings, A Call to Mercy, published this month by Image Books. In an interview with James Martin, S.J., in May, he spoke of her early mystical experiences and her struggles with the “dark night.”
James Martin: Father Brian, congratulations on the canonization of Mother Teresa. Can you tell us a little but about the final miracle attributed to her intercession?
Fr. Brian Kolodiejchuk, M.C.: Yes, thank you. It happened, in Santos, Brazil. And, surprisingly, it happened in 2008, but we didn’t hear about, and no one contacted the postulation office until the end of 2013. By the time we got everything together and made an effort to get all the documents, it was finally approved this year.
JM: What was the miracle?
BK: It was a man who was around 35 years old and was a mechanical engineer. He had developed abscesses that came from having a bacterial infection on the brain.
That developed into multiple abscesses, which turned into hydrocephaly –water on the brain. So, roughly from September, right after his marriage, he and his wife were praying to Mother Teresa. And yet it kept on getting worse. Then on December 9th, around 2 in the morning, he really got very sick; he had very extreme pain on the brain from all the water putting pressure—because the water couldn’t go down the spine; it was being blocked. So he went into a coma and basically he was on his way out.
Now they wanted to do an operation to drain the water but they couldn’t, for some technical reasons. Finally, he was dying and they had brought him to the operating room, but they realize that they didn’t have the right equipment. So around 6:10 the neurosurgeon walked out of the operating room without any hope.
At the same time, around 6 P.M., his wife, knowing the grave situation, went to her parish about to pray really intensely, again to Mother Teresa. At that time the parish priest came in. So they started praying around 6.
At 6:40, when the doctor came back into the operating room, Marcilio [Haddad Andrino], which was his name, was conscious, without any pain, and then he looked around and asked the doctor, “Well, what am I doing here?”
EDITOR'S NOTE
Early tomorrow, Tuesday, I am setting out for Ukraine for two weeks, where I shall be the guest of the Basilian and Studite monks in Kiev and Lviv, belonging to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
The horrible thing is that this may very well annoy some of my Russian Orthodox friends. It is a horrible result of schism that good Christians, people who are faithful to Christ according to their honest convictions, can dislike each other so much, and that we can hurt even our friends without any intention of doing so.
If I have access to the internet, I shall report to you from time to time. One of my wishes is to visit the Caves Monastery. A nun of St Elizabeth's Convent in Minsk gave me an icon of its holy founders which is now in my monastic cell; and I ask their intercession for me on my journey.
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