The Other Works of Mercy

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Hollywood has recently become very good at remaking movies.  Sometimes the movies are the same basic movies, but sometimes the remakes take a different spin.  Some of the remakes I’ve seen and are quite good, like “True Grit.”  Some are good, but have slightly different story lines, like “Ben Hur.”  Others I have seen and think the original was better, like “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”  Sometimes I wonder if people today realize that “Planet of the Apes” originally included Charlton Heston rather than James Franco.

For the past few years we have been talking a lot about mercy, especially during the Jubilee Year for Mercy that Pope Francis proclaimed.  And during that year most people focused (and rightly so) on the Corporal Works of Mercy: feed the hungry; give drink to the thirsty; shelter the homeless; visit the sick; visit the prisoners; bury the dead; give alms to the poor.  These still remain important parts of our faith.  It’s not like we can stop doing these things because the Jubilee Year for Mercy is over.  

But there are also the spiritual works of mercy, and I wonder how many of us know what they are?  The Spiritual Works of Mercy are: counsel the doubtful; instruct the ignorant; comfort the sorrowful; forgive injuries; bear wrongs patiently; pray for the living and the dead; admonish the sinner.  This last Spiritual Work of Mercy, admonish the sinner, is especially apropos for today’s readings.  

In the first reading, God admonishes the Prophet Ezekiel that he is to warn the wicked of their behavior.  If he doesn’t, then not only shall the wicked die for his or her sin, but also Ezekiel, because he failed to warn that person.  This admonition is also given to priests every year in our spiritual reading.  Because we are shepherds, we have the responsibility to make sure people know how to make good choices (virtue and grace) and how to avoid bad choices (vice and sin).  If we fail to do that, then we will also bear the same punishment as those who make bad choices and sin.  This is why so many of the saints consider the priesthood not a reason to boast, but a reason to fear for the final judgment.  

But admonishing the sinner is not only for priests.  Jesus, in the Gospel, tells his disciples that when someone sins, especially when it’s against you, to tell the person his fault, and hopefully that person will listen.  But, Jesus gives more advice in case the person doesn’t listen.  He then encourages the wronged party to bring in other people who can attest to the sin, hopefully convincing the person of the wrong that has been done.  But if that doesn’t happen, then (and only then) involve the Church.  If they don’t listen to the Church, then it’s time to stop trying to convince them, and instead, simply pray and fast for that person.

Admonishing the sinner is not, of course, easy.  Especially with certain sins, people prefer sinning to following God’s plan.  And when confronted with God’s plan, people sometimes don’t take it too well.  Sometimes, though, the fault is also with the person admonishing.  Sometimes people want to get back at the person, or rub that person’s fault in his or her face, rather than acting out of love.  That is why what St. Paul says in the second reading is so important: “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; […] Love does no evil to the neighbor.”  Love doesn’t mean that sin is not sin; love doesn’t mean do whatever you feel like doing.  But it does mean that if we are correcting sinful behavior, we are doing it for the right reasons: out of love.  Parents do this all the time with bad behavior.  If a child uses violence against another, that child may have to have a time-out, or maybe even be spanked (not abused, though).  But if that is done out of love to help the child, then it can truly be a work of mercy, so that the child doesn’t continue to use violence, or escalate that violence as the child grows older.  

Still, you might wonder how to admonish well.  The USCCB website gives this advice: “In humility, we must strive to create a cutler that does not accept sin, while realize that we all fall at times; Don’t judge, but guide others towards the path of salvation; When you correct someone, don’t be arrogant.  We are all in need of God’s loving correction; We should journey together to a deeper understanding of our shared faith; ‘Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.’”  Those are all very good practical pieces of advice for how to admonish a sinner.

Today the Lord invites us to be our brother’s keeper, to help keep people from sin, or bring them back from sin if they have fallen.  May we do this Spiritual Work of Mercy with love, and be willing to accept this Spiritual Work of Mercy with love, knowing that we all have responsibility for and with each other to live according to God’s plan for happiness and holiness.

'Twas the Night of Little Giants

Second Sunday of Advent

Two weeks ago we ended our Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy.  Maybe after hearing today’s Gospel we feel like we have begun the Year of Divine Wrath!  St. John the Baptist certainly did not pull any punches.  To those who were open to him, he was preaching, “‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!’”  To those who weren’t open to him, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, he was even harsher: “‘You brood of vipers!  Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?  Produce good fruit as evidence as your repentance.  […] His winnowing fan is in his hand.  He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn in unquenchable fire.”

An icon of St. John the Baptist
from outside Ein Kerem, Israel

I often wonder about how St. John the Baptist drew so many people.  He definitely had positive things to say, but a lot of what he said was somewhat harsh and critical.  Who gathers to hear the message: you are sinners and you need to shape up!?  And yet we hear about the large crowds who came to him to be baptized.  I remember walking back from the MSU-Notre Dame game (the famous one with the Little Giants play), and there was a street preacher along one of the sidewalks yelling at people to repent from their sexual immorality, their drinking, and their sinfulness in general.  I was in my collar, and as I looked at him, he said, “And don’t think you are safe because you work in the church!” or some such thing.  But people weren’t lining up to listen to him; in fact, they just walked on by. 

St. Matthew tells us that St. John the Baptist was the one who was preparing the way for the Lord.  God prepares the way for the public ministry of His Son, Jesus, by having a guy who eats locusts and honey tell people that they are sinners.  Hmmm…not the first approach I would think of if I wanted to get ready for the Messiah.

But, as Isaiah says elsewhere, God’s ways are not our ways.  And if we stop to think about it, it actually makes sense (except for the locust and honey part; I’m still not sure I get that).  We did just end the Year of Mercy, and we were rightly focused on God’s generous love which forgives us.  But love cannot be forced or faked.  God does not force His love on us (nor His mercy), and God does not give His forgiveness to those who are not sorry.  And so as odd as we may feel it is, the call to repentance is an important one.

Certainly, God’s grace starts the process.  We cannot be sorry without God enlightening us about our sins and the ways we have separated ourselves from Him.  But then we have to take the second step and acknowledge that we are wrong.  It’s one thing to think, “Maybe I shouldn’t have done X;” it’s another thing altogether to say, “I sinned when I did X.”  And it is only after we say “I sinned when I did X” and are sorry for whatever X is and make a resolution to not do X again that God can forgive us, because it is only after recognizing our sinfulness and our need for being forgiven that we will be open enough to receive God’s forgiveness.

The call to repentance and to admitting we have sinned is vitally important, of eternal importance, because only when we admit we have sinned and repent are we able to be forgiven.  Without someone to remind us that we are not perfect, that we don’t have everything figured out in our life, that we are sinners, we are not in a disposition to receive the mercy of God which we just focused on for the past year.  We need people in our life like St. John the Baptist to tell us we are sinners, not to beat us up, not to make us despair, but to prepare the road that Jesus wants to take to our hearts.  

Is it hard to admit that we’re wrong?  I’m a perfectionist, and it’s hard for me.  But it’s the truth.  I am a sinner.  And I don’t have to be Hitler or Stalin to accuse myself of sin.  We are all sinners, and we all need to repent.  We all have things in our life that are not of God and which have damaged or even severed our relationship with God.  Maybe we are afraid of guilt; maybe we don’t like that feeling.  But feeling guilty is a sign that our conscience, the voice of God in our hearts, is working properly and is properly formed by the Word of God and the teaching of the Church.  I don’t worry about the kid who cries after being caught doing something wrong in our school; I worry about the kid who feels nothing after being caught doing something wrong.

But God does not intend for us to remain in our guilt.  Guilt is meant to move us to repentance and the Sacrament of Penance.  How long has it been since you confessed your sins in the Sacrament of Penance, the way Jesus taught us to receive His forgiveness?  A month? Six months? A year? Five years? Ten years? Twenty years?  No matter how long it has been, do not let it last one more month.  God wants to shower His mercy upon you, and is waiting for you to respond to His grace to go to the Sacrament.  I’ll be glad to help you through the process if you’ve forgotten how to celebrate the sacrament or your Act of Contrition.  Or we’ll have other priests here on Sunday, 18 December at 3 p.m. to hear your confession.  The Year of Mercy is over, but God’s mercy endure for ever.  “‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!’”

Admitting We're Wrong; Receiving God's Mercy

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Sacrament of Penance, aka Confession, is one of my favorite sacraments to celebrate, both as a priest and as a penitent.  Not because I like hearing all the juicy details of your life.  Lord knows other priests have heard mine.  I love giving and receiving the mercy of God.  As a priest, a person’s confession is never about what they have done.  Yes, they have to be sorry; and sometimes I try to get them to truly make the changes that will help them not commit those sins in the future.  But the sacrament is about God’s mercy, and restoring that person to sanctifying grace, that is, the grace that makes us the saints that God called us to be in baptism.  When a person comes into the confessional, he or she may be in serious danger of going to hell because of mortal sin.  When that same person leaves, he or she is once more on the track to being a saint.

I think one of the difficulties in confessing our sins is that it can be embarrassing.  Some sins are embarrassing to confess, or even just to say.  Sometimes it’s the embarrassment of knowing that we did something we knew was wrong.  But when we confess our sins, when we admit that we have done wrong, we are not alone.  David, the best king Israel ever had, the image of what the Messiah would be like, was an adulterer and a murderer.  He got Bathsheba pregnant when she was married to Uriah, tried to have Uriah have relations with his wife so that he would think it was his, and then had Uriah killed when his planned deception did not work.  In today’s first reading, we get part of that story, where God chastises David for doing what was wrong.  But notice that, as soon as David said, “‘I have sinned against the Lord’”, God responds immediately through his prophet Nathan, “‘The Lord on his part has forgiven your sin: you shall not die.’”  As soon as we admit that we are in need of God’s mercy, which is itself made possible by God’s grace, God rushes in to forgive us, and to keep us from death and hell.  

The woman in today’s Gospel passage doesn’t even say she is sorry with her words.  She provides a service of love to Jesus to express how sorry she is.  She can’t even speak her sorrow, but cries because of how much she knows she has strayed from God.  And in her act of love, Jesus says, “‘Your sins are forgiven.’”  She knows the value of God’s love, and wants to be restored to it.  She knows that what she did was wrong, and she seeks God’s mercy.  And God, in Jesus, gives her the mercy for which she was looking.

It’s hard admitting that we’re wrong.  We love to justify ourselves as much as possible, and rationalize what we do when we sin.  Or, in some cases, we do not refer to sins as sinful; we ignore how they are contrary to God’s plan for our happiness.  We know by faith, that our chances of getting into heaven if we die in the state of mortal sin are not good.  God never forces His love upon us, and we can freely choose to reject Him in our actions.  Yet we also know of God’s mercy, that is waiting to be showered upon us.  Pope Francis has especially encouraged us to seek God’s mercy in this Jubilee Year of Mercy.  He invites us to experience personally what Psalm 32 said today: “I acknowledged my sin to you,/ my guilt I covered not./  I said, ‘I confess my faults to the Lord,’/ and you took away the guilt of my sin.//”

In his Papal Bull starting the Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis wrote, “Let us place the Sacrament of Reconciliation at the centre [sic] once more in such a way that it will enable people to touch the grandeur of God’s mercy with their own hands.  For every penitent, it will be a source of true interior peace.”  The Lord wants to shower his mercy upon us, but we must first admit that we are the ones who need mercy.  In the Sacrament of Penance, we admit that we are a sinner, and the Lord looks upon us with love and forgiveness.  Or, we recognize, as Pope Francis said in an interview, that, “‘I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.”

So we should not fear the Sacrament of Penance.  Even if it’s been 5 or 10 or 20 or 40 years since your last confession, I invite you to experience the ordinary way that God gives His mercy to us.  Don’t worry if you don’t remember your act of contrition; I’ll help you through it.  Or, if you don’t want to go to me, Fr. Shaun is always available, or you can go to one of the surrounding parishes in Lenawee County.  But don’t miss out on the chance to receive God’s mercy!

Admitting We're Wrong

Fourth Sunday of Lent

This is one of those parables that we’ve heard a thousand times.  If you think it’s hard to listen to it in the pews, imagine trying to preach on it from the ambo!  What can I say that has not already been said?  And yet, the Word of God cannot be exhausted.  If we think we know everything about this parable, then we are missing something.  There’s always a perspective or insight we have missed, even if what I’m preaching on may not be something that you missed.

But what I want to focus on today is the reaction of the Prodigal (which means wasteful) Son after his life goes down the toilet.  His reaction is that life is better with his father, even though it means returning to the father no longer as a son, but as a hired worker.  And so he starts back, and we hear about the mercy that the father wastes on his son (some have also called this the parable of the Prodigal Father).

The first step to receiving mercy is to recognize how we have wandered away from our heavenly Father’s house, how we have used our inheritance of reason and free will and wasted it on bad choices.  This is only possible by God’s grace, so God, even in our recognition of our guilt, is already at work at us to show us mercy.  But we have to cooperate with God’s mercy to recognize in truth where we have strayed.  

That’s no easy thing; especially in our culture.  No one is guilty of anything these days.  There was always a reason a person did something that eliminates all culpability for one’s actions and the consequences.  And while certainly circumstances can lessen our culpability for freely chosen actions, at the end of the day we need to return to being a people who can admit when we have done wrong; not because our upbringing was too hard or too soft; not because we suffer from affluenza; not because this group or that is out to get us; but because we chose with our free will to do something wrong.  

That sounds pretty tough.  And it doesn’t sound exciting or merciful.  But mercy can only be received by us when we realize we need mercy.  It was the Pharisees who didn’t think they needed mercy.  The adulterers, the sinners, the cheats, they all knew they needed Jesus to show them mercy.  They did not hide from their deeds.  Instead, they saw in Jesus that the recognition of their bad choices and decisions made them the exact people that Jesus came to save.  

As we examine our conscience, God helps us to know that we are sinners.  He doesn’t do this to beat us up, but to open us up to be saved by His mercy.  I often tell people that going to confession is like going to the doctor.  If we don’t tell the doctor our symptoms, he cannot cure us.  Now, God already knows what we have done, but by admitting to it, by vocalizing the sins we have committed, especially the grave sins, we let God in with His mercy, which He will not force upon us.  Think about it: who is in more danger: the person with chest pains and shortness of breath who figures he can deal with it on his own and it’s probably nothing, or the person with the same symptoms who knows something is not right and it needs to be addressed?  

Admitting that I am wrong seems to make us weak.  We have the right to remain silent, which has good legal effects, but which, if it creeps into our spiritual life, leads to certain imprisonment.  The one who admits his faults is the one who is free; the one who denies that they even exist is trapped by them.  Mercy is for the strong.  Only the weak person will say, “I did nothing wrong; it wasn’t my fault.”  The strong person can admit that he has done wrong, knowing that, in admitting his guilt, the Father runs to meet him to bestow every good gift upon him.  

St. Paul reminds us that all of us have been given the mission of being ambassadors of God’s mercy.  We do this by sharing with others the mercy we first received from God.  Think about someone who has hurt you, and pray for God’s mercy to come upon them.  Maybe they won’t come to apologize, but maybe they will.  In either case, as we pray for mercy for others, we participate in God reconciling the world.  And that is a great way to apply this parable to our own lives, and live in this Jubilee Year of Mercy.

Getting Lost

Third Sunday of Advent

When I was younger, I would go camping with my family during the summer.  One weekend during the summer was our family camping weekend, which included my grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins.  One such family camping weekend, when I was in 5th or 6th grade, I decided to go exploring with one of my sisters and two of my cousins.  We were having a grand old time, wandering around, until we realized we were lost.  After the original panic of not knowing what to do, one of my cousins and my sister decided that they were going to try and find their way back by retracing their steps.  I was pretty sure I had no idea how we had arrived at our location, so I decided to try to find another section of the State Campground, and then walk back to our site, following the numbers.  We both eventually made it back, each with our own stories of how we made it.

Today the Church invites us to rejoice.  She does so because we are more than halfway to our celebration of Christmas.  But we also rejoice because of the Good News of the Incarnation.  We rejoice because God was made flesh in order to save us from our sins.  But, in order to rejoice, we have to recognize that we are sinners.  We all get lost.

A savior is only helpful when someone needs saving.  You don’t rejoice at a lifeguard swimming out to get you when you just taking it easy, floating in your inner tube on the lazy river.  You rejoice at a lifeguard when you’re drowning.  Many soldiers celebrated General Patton pushing through in the forest of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, but not Easy Company of the 101st Airborne, because, while they were surrounded by Nazi troops and running out of supplies, they claimed they didn’t need Patton to save them.  We only rejoice at Jesus’ coming, at the true meaning of Christmas, when we recognize that we need to be saved.  Otherwise it’s just another day off from work.

To sin is to be lost.  The Greek word for sin, 𝛼𝜇𝛼𝜌𝜏𝜄𝛼, means to miss the mark.  It has the connotation of an arrow being off-course from hitting the bulls-eye.  Whenever we sin, we go off target.  We get lost, and we need to find our way back to the right path.  The problem is, only Jesus gets us truly back to the right path to God.  We can never do it by ourselves.  

The worst thing, when you’re lost, is not recognizing that you’re lost.  How many times have wives asked their husbands to stop and ask for directions, while the husband assured the wife he knew where he was going, only to end up farther away than ever 30 minutes later when he finally recognized he was lost and needed to ask for help.  We can tend not to take sin so seriously, perhaps an over reaction to decades long gone where we gave sin more power and influence than it truly had.  So many people figure that if they’re not Hitler or Stalin, then they’re doing ok.  They’re just skipping Mass; they’re just lying occasionally; they’re just taking small supplies from the company; they’re just looking at porn by themselves; it’s not like they’re murdering anyone.  Murder is certainly missing the mark.  But so are all those other things.  

The Jews knew they were in need of a savior.  That’s why the crowds asked St. John the Baptist in today’s Gospel passage, “‘What should we do?’”  St. John the Baptist didn’t say, “You’re not that bad, so don’t worry about it.”  He gave them all practical things that they could do to repent, to turn away from their sins, and prepare for the Messiah to reveal Himself.  St. John the Baptist told the people they were lost, so that they could rejoice when the one who was going to lead them back to the right path would appear.

Zephaniah also connects rejoicing and being saved in our first reading.  Zion is encouraged to shout for joy, and Israel exhorted to sing joyfully, and Jerusalem told to be glad and exult because “The Lord has removed the judgment against you.”  The joy that God is granting is one based upon being freed from sin.  Instead of judgment and the penalty falling upon the guilty, God takes it upon Himself, and restores us to right relationship with Him.  God does what we could not do, and that is certainly a reason to rejoice.

In this Jubilee Year of Mercy, Jesus invites us to receive the greatest gift He gave us: the gift of chesed, the Hebrew word which means steadfast love and mercy.  But we can only receive it if we are aware that we need it.  We are dirty; we are in need of the shower of God’s mercy.  But until we recognize that we have sinned and are in need of God’s mercy, it’s like we take an umbrella into the shower with us, to prevent us from getting wet.  Pretty rediculous, right?  

Brothers and sisters, we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  But the Good News is that God has come to save us, and in less than two weeks, we will celebrate when that Good News of the Incarnation became known to the world through the birth of Jesus.  That is truly a reason to rejoice.

"Merciful like the Father"

For my homily on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, I read a selection of the Bull Misericordiae Vultus, by which Pope Francis established the Jubilee Year of Mercy.  The selections I read are given below.  I highly encourage everyone to read the entire text.

1. Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy. These words might well sum up the mystery of the Christian faith. Mercy has become living and visible in Jesus of Nazareth, reaching its culmination in him. The Father, “rich in mercy” (Eph 2:4), after having revealed his name to Moses as “a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ex 34:6), has never ceased to show, in various ways throughout history, his divine nature. In the “fullness of time” (Gal 4:4), when everything had been arranged according to his plan of salvation, he sent his only Son into the world, born of the Virgin Mary, to reveal his love for us in a definitive way. Whoever sees Jesus sees the Father (cf. Jn 14:9). Jesus of Nazareth, by his words, his actions, and his entire person reveals the mercy of God.

[3.]  This liturgical feast day recalls God’s action from the very beginning of the history of mankind. After the sin of Adam and Eve, God did not wish to leave humanity alone in the throes of evil. And so he turned his gaze to Mary, holy and immaculate in love (cf. Eph 1:4), choosing her to be the Mother of man’s Redeemer. When faced with the gravity of sin, God responds with the fullness of mercy. Mercy will always be greater than any sin, and no one can place limits on the love of God who is ever ready to forgive.

9. In the parables devoted to mercy, Jesus reveals the nature of God as that of a Father who never gives up until he has forgiven the wrong and overcome rejection with compassion and mercy. We know these parables well, three in particular: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the father with two sons (cf. Lk 15:1-32). In these parables, God is always presented as full of joy, especially when he pardons. In them we find the core of the Gospel and of our faith, because mercy is presented as a force that overcomes everything, filling the heart with love and bringing consolation through pardon.

[…] At times how hard it seems to forgive! And yet pardon is the instrument placed into our fragile hands to attain serenity of heart. To let go of anger, wrath, violence, and revenge are necessary conditions to living joyfully. Let us therefore heed the Apostle’s exhortation: “Do not let the sun go down on your anger” (Eph 4:26). Above all, let us listen to the words of Jesus who made mercy an ideal of life and a criterion for the credibility of our faith: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Mt 5:7): the beatitude to which we should particularly aspire in this Holy Year.

13. We want to live this Jubilee Year in light of the Lord’s words: Merciful like the Father. The Evangelist reminds us of the teaching of Jesus who says, “Be merciful just as your Father is merciful” (Lk 6:36). It is a programme of life as demanding as it is rich with joy and peace. Jesus’s command is directed to anyone willing to listen to his voice (cf. Lk 6:27). In order to be capable of mercy, therefore, we must first of all dispose ourselves to listen to the Word of God. This means rediscovering the value of silence in order to meditate on the Word that comes to us. In this way, it will be possible to contemplate God’s mercy and adopt it as our lifestyle.

[15]  It is my burning desire that, during this Jubilee, the Christian people may reflect on the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. It will be a way to reawaken our conscience, too often grown dull in the face of poverty. And let us enter more deeply into the heart of the Gospel where the poor have a special experience of God’s mercy. Jesus introduces us to these works of mercy in his preaching so that we can know whether or not we are living as his disciples. Let us rediscover these corporal works of mercy: to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, heal the sick, visit the imprisoned, and bury the dead. And let us not forget the spiritual works of mercy: to counsel the doubtful, instruct the ignorant, admonish sinners, comfort the afflicted, forgive offences, bear patiently those who do us ill, and pray for the living and the dead.

24. My thoughts now turn to the Mother of Mercy. May the sweetness of her countenance watch over us in this Holy Year, so that all of us may rediscover the joy of God’s tenderness. No one has penetrated the profound mystery of the incarnation like Mary. Her entire life was patterned after the presence of mercy made flesh. The Mother of the Crucified and Risen One has entered the sanctuary of divine mercy because she participated intimately in the mystery of His love.

Chosen to be the Mother of the Son of God, Mary, from the outset, was prepared by the love of God to be the Ark of the Covenant between God and man. She treasured divine mercy in her heart in perfect harmony with her Son Jesus. Her hymn of praise, sung at the threshold of the home of Elizabeth, was dedicated to the mercy of God which extends from “generation to generation” (Lk 1:50). We too were included in those prophetic words of the Virgin Mary. This will be a source of comfort and strength to us as we cross the threshold of the Holy Year to experience the fruits of divine mercy.

At the foot of the Cross, Mary, together with John, the disciple of love, witnessed the words of forgiveness spoken by Jesus. This supreme expression of mercy towards those who crucified him show us the point to which the mercy of God can reach. Mary attests that the mercy of the Son of God knows no bounds and extends to everyone, without exception. Let us address her in the words of the Salve Regina, a prayer ever ancient and ever new, so that she may never tire of turning her merciful eyes upon us, and make us worthy to contemplate the face of mercy, her Son Jesus.

Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on 11 April, the Vigil of the Second Sunday of Easter, or the Sunday of Divine Mercy, in the year of our Lord 2015, the third of my Pontificate.

FRANCISCUS