THE GOSPEL OF MERCY REMAINS AN OPEN BOOK, SAYS POPE FRANCIS.

Pope: Gospel of Mercy Remains an Open Book

Invites Faithful to Continue Recounting Concrete Acts of Love

APRIL 3, 2016
KATHLEEN NAAB
POPE AND HOLY SEE
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Many of Jesus’ works and signs are not recorded in the Gospel, St. John explains. And Pope Francis is inviting the faithful to continue writing “those pages of the Gospel,” which recount God’s continuous mercy.

“The Gospel is the book of God’s mercy, to be read and reread, because everything that Jesus said and did is an expression of the Father’s mercy. Not everything, however, was written down; the Gospel of mercy remains an open book, in which the signs of Christ’s disciples – concrete acts of love and the best witness to mercy – continue to be written,” the Pope said during his homily this morning at Mass on this Divine Mercy Sunday.

The Holy Father added that we are “all called to become living writers of the Gospel, heralds of the Good News to all men and women of today.”

We do this by practicing the works of mercy, he explained.

Fear vs mission

Pope Francis went on to note the “evident contrast” noted in today’s Gospel: “there is the fear of the disciples, who gathered behind closed doors; and then there is the mission of Jesus, who sends them into the world to proclaim the message of forgiveness.”

The Pope said this contrast might be present in us, as we struggle “between a closed heart and the call of love to open doors closed by sin.”

Christ “wants to enter into each one of us to break open the locked doors of our hearts,” Francis said. “Jesus, who by his resurrection has overcome the fear and dread which imprison us, wishes to throw open our closed doors and send us out.”

The Pope said that in God’s mercy “all of our infirmities find healing” and that mercy “desires to reach the wounds of all, to heal them.”

“Being apostles of mercy means touching and soothing the wounds that today afflict the bodies and souls of many of our brothers and sisters,” the Pope said. “Curing these wounds, we profess Jesus, we make him present and alive; we allow others, who touch his mercy with their own hands, to recognize him as ‘Lord and God.’”