Father Richard Rohr writes: “Pope Francis insists that mercy is at the very top of the Christian hierarchy of great truths and everything falls apart whenever mercy is displaced by anything else.” In this busy world, we are often bombarded by ads, posts, texts, tweets, and even good old fashioned human contact. It is all too easy for us to forget the importance of mercy. For this reason, even though the Jubilee Year of Mercy ended almost two years ago, Pope Francis has called the Catholic Church around the world to remain focused on sharing God’s mercy through individual acts of kindness, helping the poor, making peace in our troubled world, and encouraging others to accept or seek out God’s love and mercy through the sacraments.

At Mass this weekend, the responsorial psalm cries out to us: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts (Hebrews 3:15).” This verse is included among a series of readings that caution us against arrogance, greed, vanity, and worldliness. They beckon us away from a world that seems less compassionate and more callous with each passing day. These cautionary readings also remind us of the importance of mercy. At its root, mercy is what empowers us to feel a friend’s pain; understand someone’s suffering; and empathize with the plight of a poor stranger. With God’s grace, we can unite our hearts with the heart of a person in need and respond in a merciful way.

So, how can we become more merciful in our daily lives? Here are a few suggestions. First, we can pray for an increase in mercy around the world. We can pray for our families, friends, and fellow parishioners. We can pray for people we know and people we do not know who are lonely, poor, sick, or suffering in some way. And we can pray that both our civic leaders and our faith leaders will find the courage to give witness to God’s love and mercy. If each of us offered a few prayers every day this month for these few intentions, the heavens would be flooded with prayers! The angels would rejoice! God would smile upon us! Miracles would surely happen!

Second, we can cultivate kindness in our own corner of the world. No day passes without an opportunity to share God’s love and mercy to someone somewhere. Call a lonely neighbor. Check on an elderly relative or sick friend. Send a sympathy card or a thank you note to someone who might need or appreciate a kind word. Send flowers to someone who needs to be reminded of God’s gifts of beauty and life. Allow another car to merge into your lane. Pray for (not swear at) the person who cuts in front of you. Perhaps most of all, share a kind word with your letter carrier, the cashier at the grocery store, or the poor guys who stand out in the hot sun while our roads are being repaired. Just imagine how much goodness and mercy you can share in one short week!

Finally, turn away from gossip, judging others, and holding on to grudges against colleagues, neighbors, friends, and family members. Such hardness of heart weakens our faith, numbs us to God’s grace, diminishes our ability to show mercy to friend, foe, and stranger alike. When we holdon to resentments, both large and small, we become blind to our own faults and failures. But when we forgive, we become wide-open windows through which God’s love and mercy flow out into the world. Dare to love! Dare to make peace! Dare to be merciful! Your small act of love, mercy, & forgiveness can change a life. It can change the life of your family, your workplace, or your neighborhood. Taken together, our small acts of mercy can change the world! Peace and blessings to all!

CCGR Weekly Newsletter (8-4-19) 
Bringing Home the Word (8-4-19) 
Watch: The Pope Video (August 2019)

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Words of Wisdom
Mercy Changes Everything

By Pope Francis