The Name of God Is Mercy Read Free Page B

Rome. He died in his late nineties in 1996. He, too, was a great confessor; lots of people and many priests went to him. When he heard a confession he gave his rosary to the penitents and made them hold the little cross in their hands, then he used it to absolve them, and last of all he asked them to kiss it. When he died, I was auxiliary bishop in Buenos Aires. It was the evening of Holy Saturday. I went to him the followingday, Easter Sunday, after lunch. I went down into the crypt of the church. I noticed that there were no flowers next to his coffin, so I went to look for a bouquet of flowers. Then I came back and started to put them here and there. I saw the rosary wrapped around his hands: I took the little cross from it and said: “Give me half of your mercy!” From that moment on, that cross has always been with me, I wear it on my chest: when I have a bad thought about someone I touch the cross. It’s good for me. There you have another example of a merciful priest, someone who knew how to be close to people and treat their wounds by giving them mercy.
    W HY , in your opinion, is humanity so in need of mercy?
             
    Because humanity is wounded, deeply wounded. Either it does not know how to cure its wounds or it believes that it’s not possible to cure them. And it’s not just a question of social ills or people wounded by poverty, social exclusion, or one of the many slaveries of the third millennium. Relativism wounds peopletoo: all things seem equal, all things appear the same. Humanity needs mercy and compassion. Pius XII, more than half a century ago, said that the tragedy of our age was that it had lost its sense of sin, the awareness of sin. Today we add further to the tragedy by considering our illness, our sins, to be incurable, things that cannot be healed or forgiven. We lack the actual concrete experience of mercy. The fragility of our era is this, too: we don’t believe that there is a chance for redemption; for a hand to raise you up; for an embrace to save you, forgive you, pick you up, flood you with infinite, patient, indulgent love; to put you back on your feet. We need mercy. We need to ask ourselves why today so many people, men and women, young and old, of every social class, go to psychics and fortune-tellers. Cardinal Giacomo Biffi used to quote these words by the English writer G. K. Chesterton: “When Man ceases to worship God he does not worship nothing but worships everything.” Once I heard a person say: In my grandmother’s time a confessor was enough, but today lots of people go to fortune-tellers. Today people try to find salvation wherever they can.
    T HESE phenomena you allude to, psychics and fortune-tellers, have always been part of human history, have they not?
             
    Yes, of course, there have always been soothsayers, diviners, and fortune-tellers. But not as many people looked to them for spiritual health and healing as they do today. Mostly, people are looking for someone to listen to them. Someone willing to grant them time, to listen to their dramas and difficulties. This is what I call the “apostolate of the ear,” and it is important. Very important. I feel compelled to say to confessors: talk, listen with patience, and above all tell people that God loves them. And if the confessor cannot absolve a person, he needs to explain why, he needs to give them a blessing, even without the holy sacrament. The love of God exists even for those who are not disposed to receive it: that man, that woman, that boy, or that girl—they are all loved by God, they are sought out by God, they are in need of blessing. Be tender with these people. Do not push them away. People are suffering. It is a huge responsibility to be a confessor. Confessors have before them the lost sheepthat God loves so much; if we don’t show them the love and mercy of God, we push them away and perhaps they will never come back. So embrace them and be compassionate, even if