Mercy as lifestyle

Mercy as a lifestyle: Pax Romana Community reflection beyond borders.

Friday August 12^th

Faith and Deeds (St James 2:14-17 // New International Version (NIV)

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? ¹⁵ Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

Jubilee audience: On Works of Mercy

JUNE 30^th , 2016

     How many times, during these first months of the Jubilee, we have heard talk of the works of mercy! Today the Lord invites us to make a serious examination of conscience. In fact, it is good never to forget that mercy is not an abstract word, but a style of life: a person can be merciful or not merciful; it’s a style of life. I choose to be merciful or I choose not to be merciful. It is one thing to speak of mercy and another to live mercy. Paraphrasing the words of Saint James the Apostle, (cf. 2:14-17), we can say: mercy without works is dead in itself. It is in fact like this! What renders mercy alive is its constant dynamism in going to meet the needs and necessities of all those in spiritual and material hardship. Mercy has eyes to see, ears to listen, hands to resolve…

Daily life enables us to touch with our hand so many needs regarding the poorest and most tested persons. Requested of us is that particular attention that leads us to be aware of the state of suffering and need in which so many brothers and sisters are. Sometimes we pass before dramatic situations of poverty and it seems that they do not touch us; everything continues as if there were nothing, in an indifference that in the end renders us hypocrites and, without realizing it, it results in a form of spiritual lethargy, which renders our mind insensitive and our life sterile. People that pass by, who go forward in life without being aware of the needs of others, without seeing the many spiritual and material needs, are people that pass by without living, people that do not serve others. Remember <this> well: he who does not live to serve, does not serve to live.

Draft recording