Allocutio at July 2015 Concilium Meeting by Fr. Bede McGregor, OP

The Sacrament of Mercy

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At our last meeting I offered a preliminary reflection as remote preparation for the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mary announced by Pope Francis. I expressed the deep conviction that the Jubilee should be a source of immense grace and joy for the whole Church and particularly for the Legion. Let me summarise the words of Pope Benedict XV1: ‘Mercy is the central nucleus of the Gospel message. In our own time humanity needs a strong proclamation and witness of God’s mercy. Go forth and be witnesses of God’s mercy, a source of hope for every person and for the whole world.’ The Legion too must put the Mercy of God at the very centre of its inner life and all its apostolates.

Today I want to speak about the Sacrament of Mercy and its place in the Jubilee of Mercy. Pope Francis writes: ‘Let us place the Sacrament of Reconciliation at the centre once more in such a way that it will enable people to touch the grandeur of God’s mercy with their own hands. For every penitent, it will be a source of true interior peace.’ And I think what Pope Francis says to Confessors can only be helpfully said to legionaries: In short, Confessors are called to be a sign of the primacy of mercy always, and in every situation, no matter what. Legionaries too are called to be signs of God’s mercy always and everywhere and they must be specialists in proclaiming the good news of this sacrament and experts in leading people back to the welcoming presence of the forgiving Christ in this sacrament of peace. Pope Francis also says to confessors: ‘We become good confessors when above all we allow ourselves to be penitents in search of His mercy.’ It is true for us legionaries too. We will be able to speak more convincingly of the joy and peace of this sacrament to people who are profoundly ill at ease with this sacrament and may have long since abandoned it altogether if we have developed through practice a grace filled habit of meeting the forgiving Christ in this magnificent sacrament.

We remember the words of Our Lord Himself; ‘Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.’ This joy has not been confined to heaven. I recall so many instances when legionaries have been overjoyed when under God and as instruments of Mary they have led someone back to the sacraments, especially the sacrament of mercy. Perhaps, if a praesidium or indeed a higher council gets bogged down in routine, or simply loses some of its apostolic enthusiasm, could it be that we are neglecting one of the great traditional works of the Legion, namely, seeking to bring people back to the sacraments as a central aim and task of the Legion? It would be good to ask when was the last time we spoke to anyone about confession or is promoting this sacrament a genuine focus of our praesidium? The Jubilee would be a providential time for the Legion at all levels and all over the world to reignite the tradition within the Legion of saving souls by putting them in contact with our Lord in the Sacraments.

Why is the Sacrament of Reconciliation so sublimely special? Put very simply, it is because in this sacrament we meet really, truly and personally the Person of the forgiving Christ. It is the place where infinite mercy meets every possible misery of the human person caused by sin and heals us. We hear personally the words of Christ first spoken on the Cross: ‘Father forgive them.’ The full merits of Christ’s passion are applied to us, our sins are forgiven and even more importantly we are once more united to Our Lord in true friendship. But fruitfulness of the Sacrament requires faith and this is the area where difficulties often arise. It has been truly said that one of the worst effects of sin is to make us think that God stops loving us. Or that we have committed every sin in the book and cumulatively over many years they add up to being beyond God’s mercy. We need to say gently, but with absolute clarity the teaching of the Church on this matter. Pope Francis is simply repeating the constant teaching when he writes: ‘When faced with the gravity of sin, God responds with the fullness of mercy. Mercy will always be greater than any sin, and no one can place limits on the love of God who is ever ready to forgive.’ Or, as Blessed Columba Marmion puts it: ‘God’s mercy is infinitely greater than our sinfulness.’

But sometimes it will be said: what about the unforgiveable sin that Our Lord talks about, the sin against the Holy Spirit? For the moment let me quote St Catherine of Siena who, followed St. Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas argues that the only unforgiveable sin is the offence that considers one’s sin to be greater than the mercy of God. Let me just quote one paragraph out of many from the Dialogue of St. Catherine: ‘This is the sin that is never forgiven, now or ever; the refusal, the scorning of my mercy. For this offends me more than all the other sins they have committed. So the despair of Judas displeased me more and was a greater insult to my Son than his betrayal had been. Therefore, such as these are reproved for this false judgement of considering their sins to be greater than my mercy, and for this they are punished with the demons and tortured eternally with them.

I will have to come back to this theme of Confession another time. But let me leave you with one last quotation from Pope Francis on the mystery of the mercy of God: ‘The Church feels the urgent need to proclaim God’s mercy. Her life is authentic and credible only when she becomes a convincing herald of mercy. She knows that her primary task, especially at a moment full of great hopes and signs of contradiction, is to introduce everyone to the mystery of God’s mercy by contemplating the face of Christ. The Church is called above all to be a credible witness to mercy, professing it and living it as the core of the revelation of Jesus Christ. From the heart of the Trinity, from the depths of the mystery of God, the great river of God’s mercy wells up and overflows unceasingly. It is a spring that will never run dry, no matter how many people approach it. Every time someone is in need, he or she can approach it because the mercy of God never ends.’ What Pope Francis says about the Church in that paragraph I think can be applied for the most part to the Legion too.

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