Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Mercy


Near the end of Matthew's Gospel Jesus lists the actions on which we will be judged.  He lifted them right out of the Baltimore Catechism's "Corporal Works of Mercy"!!  Show care for the hungry, thirsty, naked, imprisoned, sick.  Jesus changed the catechism's "homeless" to "stranger" or "alien."  And he left out the "dead."
"Mercy" is the name of the whole list.  It's also the byword of Francis' papacy.  If we want to know where he is leading the Church, it is toward mercy.  It's also, Jesus says, the basis on which we will be judged.

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