Francis Opens the Door of Mercy: Enter In and Become Missionaries of Mercy

Repentance walks, but mercy runs. Just as the Father ran to meet the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:20) , our Merciful heavenly Father runs to meet every one of His sons and daughters who begins the walk home to Him.

Occasions such as this Jubilee Year of Mercy are much more than nice thoughts or public acts of piety. They can truly open up the gates of heaven for those upon the earth who have the eyes of living faith through which to see the hand of God at work. They can expand the capacity to love of all those who, with hearts of living faith, are willing to open up the entirety of their life to a Savior who always comes.I will be using this opening homily given by Pope Francis - as well as many of his subsequent reflections, homilies and allocutions- as reflective material for "Moments of Mercy" which I will offer over our expanding integrated media network during this year which is especially set aside for repentance, conversion, transformation and Mercy.

VATICAN CITY (Catholic Online)- We are pleased to offer to our readers around the entire world the full homily offered by Pope Francis as he inaugurated the Jubilee Year of Mercy by symbolically opening the Holy Door. This is a special year of grace for all men and women. This wonderful year is a gift - and it comes at a time when we all need to experience the liberating love and marvelous mercy of God.

However, it invites the response of our own human freedom. Love always invites, it never coerces. Say YES. Accept the invitation! Enter in - and bring others along with you. Get rid of the dead weight of sin. Be freed from the bondage of every disordered passion. Let the self constructed chains of self idolatry be broken by God's amazing grace. Throw off all that holds you back from the freedom which comes to all who say "yes" to the Savior, Jesus Christ(Gal. 5:1) and choose to find the New Life in Him. (2 Cor. 5:17)

Repentance walks, but mercy runs. Just as the Father ran out to meet the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:20) ,so  our Merciful heavenly Father runs out to meet every one of His sons and daughters who begins the walk home to Him. I recently gave a series of talks to a group of Christians from across Christian confessional lines. In attendance was a wonderful Catholic Bishop who told me he was placing the words "door of mercy" on every confessional and reconciliation room throughout his diocese.

That is a Bishop who "gets it". Do we?

I will be using this opening homily given by Pope Francis - as well as many of his subsequent reflections, homilies and allocutions- as reflective material for "Moments of Mercy" which I will offer over our expanding integrated media network during this year which is especially set aside for repentance, conversion, transformation and Mercy.

I encourage all of our readers to enter fully and completely into this extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy. There are wonderful graces which will be offered during this year. We can always begin and begin and begin again. The Church truly is the Body of Jesus Christ and all who have been baptized into Him are members of His Body.

The Lord Jesus continues His redemptive and loving mission, through us! God STILL loves the world so much that He sends His only Son (John 3:16), through you and me! We are missionaries, in a new missionary age, sent out to set the captives free!

Occasions such as this Jubilee Year of Mercy are so much more than nice thoughts or public acts of piety. They can truly open up the gates of heaven - for those on the earth who have the eyes of living faith through which to see the hand of God at work. They can expand the capacity to love of all those who, with hearts of living faith, are willing to open up the entirety of their life to a Savior who always comes.

MARANATHA, Come Lord Jesus! (Rev. 22:20)

Deacon Keith Fournier

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From Francis, the Servant of the Servants of God

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

In a few moments I will have the joy of opening the Holy Door of Mercy. We carry out this act, so simple yet so highly symbolic, in the light of the word of God which we have just heard. That word highlights the primacy of grace. Again and again these readings make us think of the words by which the angel Gabriel told an astonished young girl of the mystery which was about to enfold her: "Hail, full of grace" (Lk 1:28).

The Virgin Mary was called to rejoice above all because of what the Lord accomplished in her. God's grace enfolded her and made her worthy of becoming the Mother of Christ. When Gabriel entered her home, even the most profound and impenetrable of mysteries became for her a cause for joy, faith and abandonment to the message revealed to her. The fullness of grace can transform the human heart and enable it to do something so great as to change the course of human history.

The feast of the Immaculate Conception expresses the grandeur of God's love. Not only does he forgive sin, but in Mary he even averts the original sin present in every man and woman who comes into this world. This is the love of God which precedes, anticipates and saves. The beginning of the history of sin in the Garden of Eden yields to a plan of saving love. The words of Genesis reflect our own daily experience: we are constantly tempted to disobedience, a disobedience expressed in wanting to go about our lives without regard for God's will.

This is the enmity which keeps striking at people's lives, setting them in opposition to God's plan.  Yet the history of sin can only be understood in the light of God's love and forgiveness. Were sin the only thing that mattered, we would be the most desperate of creatures. But the promised triumph of Christ's love enfolds everything in the Father's mercy. The word of God which we have just heard leaves no doubt about this. The Immaculate Virgin stands before us as a privileged witness of this promise and its fulfillment.

This Extraordinary Holy Year is itself a gift of grace. To pass through the Holy Door means to rediscover the infinite mercy of the Father who welcomes everyone and goes out personally to encounter each of them. This will be a year in which we grow ever more convinced of God's mercy. How much wrong we do to God and his grace when we speak of sins being punished by his judgment before we speak of their being forgiven by his mercy (cf. Saint Augustine, De Praedestinatione Sanctorum, 12, 24)!

But that is the truth. We have to put mercy before judgment, and in any event God's judgement will always be in the light of his mercy. In passing through the Holy Door, then, may we feel that we ourselves are part of this mystery of love. Let us set aside all fear and dread, for these do not befit men and women who are loved. Instead, let us experience the joy of encountering that grace which transforms all things.

Today, as we pass through the Holy Door, we also want to remember another door, which fifty years ago the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council opened to the world. This anniversary cannot be remembered only for the legacy of the Council's documents, which testify to a great advance in faith. Before all else, the Council was an encounter.

A genuine encounter between the Church and the men and women of our time. An encounter marked by the power of the Spirit, who impelled the Church to emerge from the shoals which for years had kept her self-enclosed so as to set out once again, with enthusiasm, on her missionary journey.

It was the resumption of a journey of encountering people where they live: in their cities and homes, in their workplaces. Wherever there are people, the Church is called to reach out to them and to bring the joy of the Gospel. After these decades, we again take up this missionary drive with the same power and enthusiasm.

The Jubilee challenges us to this openness, and demands that we not neglect the spirit which emerged from Vatican II, the spirit of the Samaritan, as Blessed Paul VI expressed it at the conclusion of the Council. May our passing through the Holy Door today commit us to making our own the mercy of the Good Samaritan.

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Deacon Keith A. Fournier is Founder and Chairman of Common Good Foundation and Common Good Alliance. Both organizations are committed to the conversion of culture. An ordained Roman Catholic Deacon of the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia, he and his wife Laurine have five grown children and seven grandchildren, He is a human rights lawyer and public policy advocate who served as the first and founding Executive Director of the American Center for Law and Justice in the nineteen nineties. He has long been active at the intersection of faith, values and culture and serves as Special Counsel to Liberty Counsel. He is a contributing writer to THE STREAM. He writes regularly for Catholic News Agency and is the Editor in Chief of Catholic Online.

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