(Ho 14:1-9; Ps 81; Mk 12:28-34)<\/p>\n
*****************************************<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly he who has been touched and caressed by the tenderness of God\u2019s mercy really knows the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n
That comment by Pope Francis invites us to see today\u2019s readings as hymns to God\u2019s mercy, sung by God, and to fall into the merciful hands of the living and loving God, the \u201cfathomless net of God\u2019s mercy,\u201d as Richard Rohr puts it.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Pope-Francis-couple-300x180.jpg\")
Billboard preparing for the visit of Pope Francis to Mexico<\/p><\/div>\n
Early in the Jubilee Year, Pope Francis launched a book-length interview titled The Name of God is Mercy.<\/em> In it he highlights the extravagant pervasiveness of mercy as well as the need to encounter mercy so as to practice it. There Pope Francis insists \u201cGod does not want anyone to be lost. God\u2019s mercy is infinitely greater than our sins; his medicine is infinitely stronger than the illnesses that we have to heal.\u201d Without that mercy we do not really know the Lord. \u201cOnly he who has been touched and caressed by the tenderness of his mercy really knows the Lord.\u201d So, for Pope Francis, the place we encounter God\u2019s mercy best is through our sins.<\/p>\n The readings bring to mind the Song of Songs, as Hosea has God singing a song of God\u2019s mercy, calling for repentance, expressing love for God\u2019s sinful people. Psalm 81 especially is similar to the Song of Songs \u2013 a long intimate hymn to God\u2019s longing for God\u2019s people.<\/p>\n In the Gospel, Jesus teaches us the Great Commandment that is all about love and that responds to our deepest human need to be loved, to belong and to be valued.<\/p>\n It was a common practice in Jesus\u2019 time to ask a rabbi to identify the central precept of the Law. Thus, Jesus is asked, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” He gave his famous answer: “\u2018You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.\u2019 The second is this: \u2018You shall love your neighbor as yourself.\u2019” Reaching back to Leviticus 18:19, he lifts an obscure commandment buried there, easily overlooked, and elevates it to an equal status with the great Shema of Israel \u2013 loving God with our whole being. From now on, it is just as important to love others as we love ourselves, as it is to love God. That constitutes some of the \u201cnewness\u201d of the teachings of Jesus.<\/p>\n What is very interesting is the comment of the scribe to the answer Jesus puts forward in responding to the scribe\u2019s question. Unlike all the other religious leaders so hostile to Jesus, this scribe \u201cgets it\u201d \u2013 he perhaps intuits the deeper meaning of Jesus\u2019 whole ministry and teaching \u2013 that love trumps law, mercy trumps raw justice, relationship trumps rules and regulations, the heart trumps proper ritual, or as he puts it, \u201cLove is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.\u201d What is paramount in God\u2019s view is for God\u2019s people to have an intimate relationship with God and one of genuine love, caring and sharing of life with others. That would include a faith-filled, intimate relationship with Jesus. Ultimately, the relationship we have with Jesus is the relationship we will have with God, the Father of us all.<\/p>\n In the end, all of religion is finally about awakening the deepest desire of the heart and directing it toward God; it is about the ordering of love toward that which is most worthy of love. But this love of God carries, Jesus says, as a necessary implication, compassion for one\u2019s fellow human beings.<\/p>\n Why are the two commandments so tightly linked? Because of who Jesus is. Christ is not simply a human being, and he is not simply God; rather, he is the God-man, the one in whose person divinity and humanity meet. Therefore, it is impossible to love him as God without loving the humanity that he has embraced. The greatest commandment is, therefore, an indirect Christology, a flowing out of the reality of the Son of God become the Word made flesh.<\/p>\n The recent crisis of the Caronavirus Covid-19 has brought out both the worst in people (taking advantage of the crisis to scam others for the sake of financial gain) and the best in people. That \u201cbest\u201d can be seen in the phenomenon becoming known as \u201ccaremongering\u201d \u2013 people randomly practicing acts of kindness like shopping for others, doing their errands, and dropping off food for those in need. That is living the gospel for today.<\/p>\n The Eucharist is our hymn of love in response to God\u2019s love for us, inviting us to fall into the merciful hands of the living and loving God, the fathomless net of God\u2019s mercy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" HOMILY LENT WEEK 03 05 \u2013 Year II Speaking of Hymns to God\u2019s Mercy (Ho 14:1-9; Ps 81; Mk 12:28-34) ***************************************** \u201cOnly he who has been touched and caressed by the tenderness of God\u2019s mercy really knows the Lord.\u201d That comment by Pope Francis invites us to see today\u2019s readings as hymns to God\u2019s mercy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homilies","category-lent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3385"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3387,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3385\/revisions\/3387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/archbishopsylvainlavoie.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}