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<p>Pope Francis presided over a penance service in St. Peter's
Basilica on Friday afternoon, during which he announced an
extraordinary Jubilee dedicated to Divine Mercy. Below, please
find Vatican Radio's English translation of the Holy Father's
homily, in which he made the announcement.</p>
<p>****************************************</p>
<p>This year as last, as we head into of the Fourth Sunday of Lent,
we are gathered to celebrate the penitential liturgy. We are
united with so many Christians, who, in every part of the world,
have accepted the invitation to live this moment as a sign of the
goodness of the Lord. The Sacrament of Reconciliation, in fact,
allows us with confidence to draw near to the Father, in order to
be certain of His pardon. He really is “rich in mercy” and extends
His mercy with abundance over those who turn to Him with a sincere
heart.</p>
<p>To be here in order to experience His love, however, is first of
all the fruit of His grace. As the Apostle Paul reminds us, God
never ceases to show the richness of His mercy throughout the
ages. The transformation of the heart that leads us to confess our
sins is “God's gift”, it is “His work” (cf. Eph 2:8-10). To be
touched with tenderness by His hand and shaped by His grace allows
us, therefore, to approach the priest without fear for our sins,
but with the certainty of being welcomed by him in the name of
God, and understood notwithstanding our miseries. Coming out of
the confessional, we will feel God’s strength, which restores life
and returns the enthusiasm of faith.</p>
<p>The Gospel we have heard (cf. Lk 7:36-50) opens for us a path of
hope and comfort. It is good that we should feel that same
compassionate gaze of Jesus upon us, as when he perceived the
sinful woman in the house of the Pharisee. In this passage two
words return before us with great insistence: <em>love</em> and <em>judgment</em>.</p>
<p>There is the love of the sinful woman, who humbles herself before
the Lord; but first there is the merciful love of Jesus for her,
which pushes her to approach. Her cry of repentance and joy washes
the feet of the Master, and her hair dries them with gratitude;
her kisses are pure expression of her affection; and the fragrant
ointment poured out with abundance attests how precious He is to
her eyes. This woman’s every gesture speaks of love and expresses
her desire to have an unshakeable certainty in her life: that of
being forgiven. And Jesus gives this assurance: welcoming her, He
demonstrates God’s love for her, just for her! Love and
forgiveness are simultaneous: God forgives her much, everything,
because “she loved much” (Luke 7:47); and she adores Jesus because
she feels that in Him there is mercy and not condemnation. Thanks
to Jesus, God casts her many sins away behind Him, He remembers
them no more (cf. Is 43:25). For her, a new season now begins; she
is reborn in love, to a new life.</p>
<p>This woman has really met the Lord. In silence, she opened her
heart to Him; in pain, she showed repentance for her sins; with
her tears, she appealed to the goodness of God for forgiveness.
For her, there will be no judgment except that which comes from
God, and this is the judgment of mercy. The protagonist of this
meeting is certainly the love that goes beyond justice.</p>
<p>Simon the Pharisee, on the contrary, <em>cannot find the path of
love</em>. He stands firm upon the threshold of formality. He is
not capable of taking the next step to go meet Jesus, who brings
him salvation. Simon limited himself to inviting Jesus to dinner,
but did not really welcome Him. In his thoughts, he invokes only
justice, and in so doing, he errs. <em>His judgment on the woman
distances him from the truth</em> and does not allow him even to
understand who guest is. He stopped at the surface, he was not
able to look to the heart. Before Jesus’ parable and the question
of which a servant would love his master most, the Pharisee
answered correctly, “The one, to whom the master forgave most.”
And Jesus does not fail to make him observe: “Thou hast judged
rightly. (Lk 7:43)” Only when the judgment of Simon is turned
toward love: then is he in the right.</p>
<p>The call of Jesus pushes each of us never to stop at the surface
of things, especially when we are dealing with a person. We are
called to look beyond, to focus on the heart to see how much
generosity everyone is capable. No one can be excluded from the
mercy of God; everyone knows the way to access it and the Church
is <em>the house that welcomes all and refuses no one</em>. Its
doors remain wide open, so that those who are touched by grace can
find the certainty of forgiveness. The greater the sin, so much
the greater must be the love that the Church expresses toward
those who convert.</p>
<p>Dear brothers and sisters, I have often thought about how the
Church might make clear its mission of being a witness to mercy.
It is journey that begins with a spiritual conversion. For this
reason, I have decided to call an <em>extraordinary Jubilee</em>
that is to have the mercy of God at its center. It shall be a Holy
Year of Mercy. We want to live this Year in the light of the
Lord's words: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. (cf.
Lk 6:36)”</p>
<p>This Holy Year will begin on this coming Solemnity of the
Immaculate Conception and will end on November 20, 2016, the
Sunday dedicated to Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe –
and living face of the Father’s mercy. I entrust the organization
of this Jubilee to the Pontifical Council for Promotion of the New
Evangelization, that [the dicastery] might animate it as a new
stage in the journey of the Church on its mission to bring to
every person the Gospel of mercy.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.6;">I am convinced that the whole
Church will find in this Jubilee the joy needed to rediscover
and make fruitful the mercy of God, with which all of us are
called to give consolation to every man and woman of our time.
From this moment, we entrust this Holy Year to the Mother of
Mercy, that she might turn her gaze upon us and watch over our
journey.</span></p>
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