林中斌 部落格 / Blog Chong-Pin Lin

This Merciful Year 

Mark K. Shriver, The New York Times, Nov 24, 2016

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/24/opinion/sunday/this-merciful-year.html?_r=0

accessed Nov 25, 2016

●Pope Francis “i(I)n his book “The Name of God Is Mercy,” he described an episode from his time as a rector in Argentina. The parish church sometimes helped out a woman whose husband had left her, and who had turned to prostitution to feed her young children.“I remember one day — it was during the Christmas holidays — she came with her children to the College and asked for me. They called me and I went to greet her. She had come to thank me. I thought it was for the package of food from Caritas that we had sent to her. ‘Did you receive it?’ I asked. ‘Yes, yes, thank you for that, too. But I came here today to thank you because you never stopped calling me Señora.’ ”
「教宗方濟各回憶他在阿根廷任教會職務時，曾幫助一位被丈夫遺棄的婦人，而她為養活嬰兒們淪為娼妓。一天，在耶誕節假日時她和小孩來教會找我，我以為是為了我們寄給她的食物。我問:“你收到了嗎?”她說:“是的，是的。感謝您送的食物。但是我今天特地來是因為您從未停止稱呼我‘夫人’。」

●“Life grows by being given away, and it weakens in isolation and comfort.”
「生命增長因為付出，生命減弱因為孤立和舒適。」

●“Enter the chaos and the pain and the joy of others’lives. Then you will be turely merciful, and truly alive.”
「進入他人命中的混亂，痛苦和歡樂，然後您會展現真正的慈愛而且享有真正的生命。」

Growing up in a big Irish Catholic family, I knew the liturgical seasons of the year — Advent, Christmas, Lent, Triduum, Easter and Ordinary Time. But I don’t remember hearing much about Jubilee Years, which occur about every 25 years, let alone about Extraordinary Jubilee Years, which are called out of that cycle to commemorate a special moment in the Roman Catholic Church’s history or highlight an important issue. Since the church began celebrating Jubilee Years in 1300, only a few Extraordinary Jubilees have been called — including the one that ended this week.

Pope Francis called this Extraordinary Jubilee to focus on the issue of mercy. This should not surprise people familiar with this pope, whose episcopal motto is “miserando atque eligendo” — “by having mercy and choosing” — which refers to the merciful gesture of Jesus calling Matthew, a hated tax collector, to become one of his disciples.

But as the Year of Mercy progressed, I realized that what Pope Francis meant by mercy had almost nothing to do with what I thought it meant.

I had considered mercy from an intellectual perspective and believed the pope was essentially calling me to be nicer to people. But he is calling on us to live mercy on a deeply personal basis that changes the very essence of who we are.

In his book “The Name of God Is Mercy,” he described an episode from his time as a rector in Argentina. The parish church sometimes helped out a woman whose husband had left her, and who had turned to prostitution to feed her young children.

“I remember one day — it was during the Christmas holidays — she came with her children to the College and asked for me. They called me and I went to greet her. She had come to thank me. I thought it was for the package of food from Caritas that we had sent to her. ‘Did you receive it?’ I asked. ‘Yes, yes, thank you for that, too. But I came here today to thank you because you never stopped calling me Señora.’ ”

The story forced me to think about how I treated people in need, particularly the homeless man I saw outside my office every day. I occasionally gave him money, but I didn’t stop and look him in the eye; I didn’t ask his name, let alone call him Mister.

Now I know his name is Robert. When I give him money or buy him breakfast, I ask him how he is doing. I don’t do it every time I encounter a homeless person, but I am getting better. I have enjoyed learning people’s names, exchanging a few words and a smile.

Has it changed the world? No. But it has made me more aware, perhaps even more sensitive, to others’ struggles.

Pope Francis has renewed my faith, and my faith in my church, because he sees a Catholic Church that works on the margins of society, a church that, as Francis says, is like a “field hospital” that must go into the streets and look for the “wounded.”

But — and this is very important — Francis’ message of mercy is much more than that: He challenges us all to not just provide support to the poor but to learn from them as well, to listen to them, to be with them.

And by poor, he does not mean only those who are struggling financially. He means those who have physical and psychological and spiritual problems. In other words, he means all of us. He is calling upon each of us to be truly merciful with one another, in real and meaningful ways. Not just being a bit nicer or writing checks to charity; no, he is challenging us to intimacy with one another, and with God.

At the beginning of the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, I felt that Pope Francis was on “my side” — that he saw the church, as I did, as a social justice entity.

But Francis’ call for mercy is much deeper. When he says that “life grows by being given away, and it weakens in isolation and comfort” and goes on to ask us to “leave security on the shore and become excited by the mission of communicating life to others,” he is telling us to get out of our comfort zones. He is saying to me, a supposedly progressive Catholic who works on behalf of poor kids and families: Don’t be isolated and content, enter the chaos and the pain and the joy of others’ lives.

Then you will be truly merciful, and truly alive.

Francis comforts me, but like a great teacher, he also challenges me to my very core. What an extraordinary year it has been. I hope it never ends.