Commentary on the Gospel of
God Has Is Mercy
In the book The Name of God Is Mercy, Pope Francis emphatically states thus: “Mercy is the first attribute of God. The name of God is mercy.” In the context of today’s gospel, we listen to Pope Francis:
“I believe that this is a time for mercy. The Church is showing her maternal side, her motherly face, to a humanity that is wounded. She does not wait for the wounded to knock on her doors, she looks for them on the streets, she gathers them in, she embraces them, she takes care of them, she makes them feel loved. And so, as I said, and I am ever more convinced of it, this is a kairós, our era is a kairós of mercy, an opportune time…. Etymologically, ‘mercy’ derives from misericordis, which means opening one’s heart to wretchedness. And immediately we go to the Lord: mercy is the divine attitude which embraces, it is God’s giving himself to us, accepting us, and bowing to forgive.”
