Cover Story: Get into Mercy Mode

COVER STORY

Get into Mercy Mode AN EXTRA SHOT OF GRACE ...24

F

24

Cover Story

Mercy

Mode

Pope Francis has called a Jubilee year for the Church and invites Catholics to experience the joy of giving and receiving mercy.

Dear brothers and sisters, I have often thought about how the Church might make clear its mission of being a witness to mercy.

It is a journey that begins with a spiritual conversion. For this reason, I have decided to call an extraordinary Jubilee that is to have the mercy of God at its centre. It shall be a Holy Year of Mercy. We want to live this Year in the light of the Lord’s words: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:36) Pope Francis | Announcing the Year of Mercy, March 13, 2015

Cover Story

Get into

25

Cover Story

M E

26

Our Jubilee Heritage

An Extra Shot of Grace

Jubilee years are rare and important events in the Catholic tradition. For the whole year we are invited to focus on what matters most: our relationship with God, with others and with our natural environment. It’s a year of reconciliation, hope, justice and peace.

Mercy is the theme of this Holy Year, or extraordinary Jubilee. It runs from the feast of the Immaculate Conception (in honour of Mary - Dec 8, 2015) until the feast of Christ the King (Nov 20, 2016).

The Christian Jubilee Year has roots in the Jewish tradition. In the Law of Moses every fiftieth year was to be set aside as a special year to express and respond to God’s love. Slaves were liberated, people released from their debts, land given back to its original owners and families reunited.

Land cultivated for food was left fallow to regenerate.

The year would open with the blowing of a goat’s horn called a Yobel – which is where we get the English word Jubilee!

In announcing this extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis has singled out a primary theme of his papacy. It’s a great time to visit Rome if that’s on your bucket list; pilgrims who visit St Peter’s Basilica can enter through its Holy Doors which represent a new avenue of grace available to us.

But you don’t have to go to Rome to receive the outpouring of grace during this time.

It encompasses the entire Church and all Catholics, who are encouraged to generously give and seek mercy during the Holy Year.

Cover Story

R C Y

27

The Holy Doors at St Peter’s Basilica When you have the strength to say, ‘I want to come home,’ you will find the door open. God will come to meet you because he is always waiting for you - God is always waiting for you. God embraces you, kisses you, and celebrates.

Pope Francis | General Audience, October 2, 2013

For more on MERCY www.franklymag.org

Cover Story

Fr Mike Schmitz is the director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry in the Diocese of Duluth in Minnesota, and Chaplain at the University of Minnesota-Duluth

28

Ever been curious about what it’s like for a priest to hear people’s sins in confession?

US priest Fr Mike Schmitz describes his experience

Cover Story

Reconciliation Where Mercy Hits the Road If sins are like garbage, then the priest is like God’s garbage man. If you ask a garbage man about the grossest thing he’s ever had to haul to the dump, maaaaaaybe he could remember it. But the fact is, once you get used to taking out the trash, it ceases to be noteworthy, it ceases to stand out.

There is almost no greater place to be than with someone when they are coming back to God. It is the most joyful, humbling, and inspiring place in the world.

I don’t care if this is the person’s third confession this week; if they are seeking the Sacrament of Reconciliation it means that they are trying. So what if the priest is disappointed? We try to be so impressive with so much of our lives. Confession is a place where we don’t get to be impressive.

Confession is a place where the desire to impress goes to die.

Cont...

29

Cover Story 30

Not many folks get to see the way in which God’s sacrifice on the Cross is constantly breaking into people’s lives and melting the hardest of hearts. Jesus consoles those who are grieving their sins . . . and strengthens those who find themselves wanting to give up on God or on life. As a priest, I get to see this thing happen every day.

I cannot tell you how humbled I am when someone approaches Jesus’ mercy through me. I am not over-awed by their sins; I am struck by the fact that they have been able to recognise sins in their life that I have been blind to in my own.

God’s sacrifice breaks into people’s lives and melts even the hardest of hearts One time, after college, I was returning to Confession after a long time and a lot of sin and the priest simply gave me something like one Hail Mary. I asked him why. He looked at me with great love and told me he would be fasting for me for the next thirty days.

I was stunned. I didn’t know what to do. He told me that the Catechism teaches that the priest must do penance for all those who come to him for Confession. And here he was, embracing a severe penance for all of my severe sins.

F

Article reprinted with permission. For more from Fr Schmitz visit www.bulldogcatholic.org

Cover Story

The Sacrament of Reconciliation is one of the treasures of the Catholic faith, given freely in every parish.

31 A priest once described his experience of hearing confessions like this: It is the moment when I feel closest to my people.

I am not worthy to judge anyone’s sins. I feel intensely humbled and privileged to be a channel of God’s love and healing.

Cover Story 32

Divine Mercy A Promise

A 20th century Polish saint, St Faustina Kowalska, had a series of visions of Jesus which became the basis for Divine Mercy Sunday (the first Sunday after Easter). In her diary she recorded the following messages from Jesus.

Come with faith to the feet of my representative [in the Sacrament of Reconciliation]...and make your confession before me.

The person of the priest is, for me, only a screen. Never analyse what sort of priest that I am making use of; open your soul in confession as you would to me, and I will fill it with my light.

Whoever places his trust in my mercy will be filled with my divine peace at the hour of death.

Jesus Christ | As spoken to St Faustina

Cover Story

The Divine Mercy Shrine where St Faustina is buried, showing the painting of Jesus as she described him. The words, “Jesus I trust in you� are inscribed at the bottom.

33

Cover Story

Carey’s story 34

Carey and Mark* were living a good but uneasy marriage for years together; both carrying their own difficult pasts and trying to live the life together they had committed to.

After the death of Mark’s devout Catholic mother, he began a journey of discovery back to his Catholic faith. He began going to Mass on his day off and, over time, Carey begun to notice profound changes in her husband, including him stopping drinking and smoking - both battles he had fought for years.

Carey has been having her own internal battles. After two abortions in her earlier years, she was overwhelmed by a deep sense of shame. She fell into unhealthy relationships and walked away from the Church. Even after falling in love and marrying Mark, her past haunted her and so she decided to take her secret to her grave in fear that he would confirm her own belief that she was unforgivable.

Carey was touched by Mark’s newly discovered faith and loved the change she saw in him… until the day Mark asked Carey if she would be willing to have their marriage blessed by the Church. Terrified that this required her to go to Confession and have to face the unforgivable, she thought she would have to divorce Mark, rather than allow herself to be the obstacle to his return to faith because of her past.

Carey picks up the story… * Names have been changed.

He took me to see the church he had been attending, where he wanted our marriage to be blessed. Before we knew it, people started coming in for the Saturday Vigil Mass. Instead of leaving, we decided to stay. When the Gospel was being read, I distinctly heard, ‘Pay attention: this is important.’ I had never listened to the Gospel with such intent. ‘Strive to enter through the narrow gate.’ I had no idea what was happening, but those words lit my heart on fire and pierced me. Suddenly, I wanted that gate…I just didn’t know how I could enter it.

Cont..

Carey felt like she was living in a fog

Cover Story

“Mark outlined the steps necessary to have our marriage blessed by the Church.

You know, just the usual, ‘Confession, go to church every Sunday, etc…’ All I heard was CONFESSION. I was thinking, ‘Are you kidding me!?’ But he was so excited, like something finally had meaning to him. In my heart, I felt the Lord was saying, ‘Now you can make it right’. My husband then handed me a pamphlet on how to make a good Confession and told me we should pray the rosary too. I had never prayed the rosary in my life! He was so immersed in the whole thing; I had never seen him like that before.

35

Cover Story 36

“I did something...the unforgivable - something horrible.�

“After praying the rosary every day for a week using my new iPod app, I felt it was time to tell Mark everything. There we were in the kitchen before dinner, and overcome by tears, I confessed, ‘I did something that will prevent you from being able to get back into the Church. The unforgivable something horrible - when I was 18 years old.’ I cried and gasped for air, telling the whole story in 30 seconds. ‘Can I ever be forgiven?’

His merciful response stunned me. He held me and told me with great conviction that everyone is forgiven when they come to Jesus and ask Him, ‘even abortion, even you.’ He said, ‘So that’s what you’ve been holding in for all of these years? No one should go through something like that all alone.’ It all made sense to him then — my previous relationships with men who didn’t fit my persona, my moodiness, everything I did in the past was now making sense. He told me we needed to get to a priest so I could go to Confession and all would be well.

The very next morning I woke up and called the presbytery as soon as it opened.

‘Father is available right now; can you be here in 10 minutes?’ Yes, yes, yes!

I was clutching onto the steering wheel with both hands and praying through tears the ‘Hail Mary’ all the way down. ‘Hail Mary, full of grace,’ over and over. I started hearing whispers in my mind, “You don’t have to do this. What about the second abortion? Are you going to tell him about that one? You don’t have to, you know. Why make this so difficult for yourself?’ I was fighting so hard through this, crying and praying the Hail Mary.

I started hearing whispers in my mind: Why make this so difficult for yourself?

I felt like the woman with the haemorrhage in scripture who reached out to just touch Jesus’ cloak; if I just touch it I will be healed.

I was feeling so much conflict and terror because I could not get over the second abortion. Where is this coming from? I lashed back, ‘No! I want to heal! Hail Mary, full of grace!’

Cont...

Cover Story

Overcoming Fear

37

Cover Story

Healing Begins

38

I finally arrived at the presbytery. I hadn’t made a Confession in 20 years and I had never made a good one. I was holding onto a 29-year-old sin that was strangling me. I didn’t know where to begin. Father gently walked me through the Commandments, one by one, as I made my Confession through tears.

that all of heaven rejoices when the one lost sheep is found. I knew I was that lost sheep, who was no longer lost. He then said, ‘Now you need to heal’. He told me about the Sisters of Life and what they did. When I walked out of the presbytery, the sun came out of the clouds for the first time in four days. F

When I was finished, he made a motion with his hands, as if picking up a lamb and carrying it on his shoulders. He told me

Reprinted with permission from the Sisters of Life/ IMPRINT magazine Spring 2015 issue.

The Sisters of Life is a religious community of women founded in 1991 in New York by John Cardinal O’Connor. The sisters’ average age is in the mid-30s.

Like all religious communities, they take the three traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. The Sisters of Life are also consecrated under a special, fourth vow: to protect and enhance the sacredness of human life.

Their work includes welcoming pregnant women in need of respite to live with them in one of their convents, and offering other practical assistance to expectant mothers. They also run retreats, including retreats for healing after an abortion.

Hunger for Mercy “Well, Father, I am a sinner; I have tremendous sins! How can I possibly feel part of the Church?”

Dear brother, dear sister, this is exactly what the Lord wants, that you say to him, “Lord, here I am, with my sins.” Is one of you here without sin? Anyone? No one, not one of us.

We all carry our sins with us. But the Lord wants to hear us say to him, “Forgive me, help me to walk, change my heart!” And the Lord can change your heart.

In the Church, the God we encounter is not a merciless judge but is like the Father in the Gospel parable. You may be like the son who left home, who sank to the depths, farthest from the Gospel.

When you have the strength to say, “I want to come home,” you will find the door open.

Pope Francis | General Audience, October 2, 2013

For more information on the Sisters of Life and their work see www.sistersoflife.org

Cover Story

The Sisters of Life

39

40

Cover Story

Meat-

free

Fridays for mercy

Traditionally, Fridays are days when we remember Jesus’ death on the Cross. While it’s not common in Australia these days, in many countries Catholics avoid eating meat on EVERY Friday of the year – not just during Lent!

Start small with a meatfree lunch on Fridays as an offering to Jesus.

Not challenging enough for you? Go full vegetarian (after all, fish is just meat that swims!) on Wednesdays for our Lady and on Fridays in honour of Christ’s Passion and in solidarity with the poor.

Cover Story

ONE MINUTE CATHOLIC

41