Sun Chat Aug 1: Mercy and Forgiveness

His Eminence Donald Cardinal Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, D.C., released a pastoral letter on Pentecost Sunday (May 24, 2015) entitled “Being Catholic Today: Catholic Identity in an Age of Challenge.” Our reflection continues with the topic of mercy, forgiveness and faithfulness.

Chapter Five: God’s Mercy, Forgiveness and Our Fidelity

When asked by a journalist “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” Pope Francis responded, “I am a sinner. This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner,” (America magazine, September 25, 2013.)  The Pope’s words are not empty humility but the true posture required of any follower of Jesus Christ. We are sinners in need of a savior.

Jesus came to call sinners. So if we are ever to be saved, we must admit our sinfulness.  To be truly redeemed, we must face our own failures. To be truly healed, we must allow the Lord to touch our wounds.

Our failure to live up to the demands of the Gospel is a reality of life, but
we are blessed with God’s mercy and forgiveness. The Lord’s capacity to forgive is infinitely greater than our ability to sin. However, failure to always fulfill our Christian obligations is not the same as the decision to reject specific obligations, teachings, commandments and requirements set by the Lord. It is inevitable – though no less deserving of our repentance – that we will sin. But our moral failings must not cloud our belief in the truth of Christ’s teachings. And believing in that truth, we must not fail to proclaim it.

Saint John Paul II said, “People today put more trust in witnesses than in teachers, in experience than in teaching, and in life and action than in theories. The witness of a Christian life is the first and irreplaceable form of mission” (Redemptoris missio, 42).  Blessed Paul VI put it this way, “Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers it is because they are witnesses” (Evangelii nuntiandi, 41). When people are faithful and give good witness, they lead people to Christ. But when we give bad witness, we can lead people away from Christ.

When I was a young priest in the 1960s and 1970s, there was much experimentation and confusion in the Church. Teachers and clergy were encouraged by some to communicate an experience of God’s love, but to do it without reference to the Creed, the sacraments, or Church tradition. It did not work very well. Catholics grew up with the impression that their heritage was little more than warm, vaguely positive feelings about God.

Those years of experimentation left many Catholics weak, spiritually and intellectually, and unable to withstand the tsunami of secularism that came in recent decades. We lost many people because we failed to teach them about right and wrong, about the common good, about the nature of the human person. This left many no longer able to admit that we are sinners who need Jesus because many no longer know what sin is.

This lived experience of people not being fully or correctly presented the truth of the faith illustrates why we are called to the New Evangelization. It also demonstrates why it is so crucial that we reassert and strengthen our Catholic identity, and that our freedom to do so be respected in society and in law.

We have received something in the Church that is not ours; it the Lord’s. As his faithful stewards, we are accountable to the Lord, not to the contrary demands of the culture. We need to remain connected to Christ and be true to the mission he has entrusted to us.

“Since faith is one, it must be professed in all its purity and integrity. Precisely because all the articles of faith are interconnected, to deny one of them, even of those that seem least important, is tantamount to distorting the whole” explains Pope Francis. “Indeed, inasmuch as the unity of faith is the unity of the Church, to subtract something from the faith is to subtract something from the veracity of communion” (Lumen fidei, 48).

Although we are sinners, we do not profess sin, but rather, trusting in God’s mercy, move from sin to truth and freedom so as to profess the Gospel of Jesus Christ.