The Name of God is Mercy is in many ways an extraordinary book – it is the result of a face-to-face interview with Pope Francis by a long-time Vatican expert and journalist, Andrea Tornielli (the same one whose question, on a previous occasion, elicited the famous papal comment ‘Who am I to judge?’). Tornielli says the book is meant to “reveal the heart of Pope Francis and his vision.” Published in January 2016, it is nothing but a book-length elaboration of that one single word—MERCY—which has dominated Pope Francis’s pontificate and has been at the heart of his agenda from the time he stepped into the fisherman’s shoes on 13 March 2013.
How Pope Francis understands mercy and forgiveness is beautifully teased out by Tornielli, who sent to the pope thirty questions and issues, two days in advance of the interview, with the understanding that other questions could also be asked on the spot. The book consists of an introduction by Tornielli, the questions and answers organized in nine chapters and the text of Misericordiae Vultus, as an appendix.
First Experience of Mercy
God’s mercy has been at the heart of Pope Francis’s life ever since he had an extraordinary experience of it in a confession he made at the age of 17 to Fr. Carlos Ibarra, who happened to be in his parish for treatment of leukemia. It was a turning point in his life. On confessing to him, he felt welcomed by the mercy of God. He says, “After making my confession I felt something had changed. I was not the same. I had heard something like a voice, or a call.” This was the definitive moment of mercy in his life; it still fuels his desire to share this mercy with others.
Sin and Sinners
“Sin,” he says, “is more than a stain; sin is a wound; it needs to be treated, healed. The place where my encounter with the mercy of Jesus takes place is my sin.” The most important thing in the life of every man and every woman is, the pope says, “not that they should never fall along the way… but “always to get back up, not to stay on the ground licking your wounds.”
Speaking about the mentality of the people of our times visa-a-vis sin and repentance, Pope Francis recalls what Pope Pius XII had said more than half a century ago: “The tragedy of our age was that it had lost its sense of sin, the awareness of sin.” Today, he says, we add to that tragedy “by considering that our illness, our sins, to be incurable, things that cannot be healed or forgiven… we don’t believe that there is a chance for redemption; for a hand to raise you up; for an embrace to save you, forgive you, pick you up, flood you with infinite, patient, indulgent love; to put you back on your feet.”
To them Pope Francis says, “There are no situations we cannot get out of. Jesus is there, his hand extended, ready to reach out to us and pull us out of the mud, out of sin. We need only be conscious of our state, be honest with ourselves, and not lick our wounds. We need to ask for the grace to recognize ourselves as sinners.”
The Father: Abounding in mercy
Pope Francis speaks movingly of the Father’s mercy. “God awaits us with open arms,” he says, “we need only to take a step toward him like the Prodigal Son. But if, weak as we are, we don’t have the strength to take that step, just the desire to take it is enough.”
“God is faithful,” he continues. “Mercy will always be greater than any sin; no one can put a limit on the love of the all-forgiving God. Just by looking at him, just by raising our eyes from ourselves and our wounds, we leave an opening for the action of his grace. Jesus performs miracles with our sins, with what we are, with our nothingness, with our wretchedness.”
A Merciful Church
In Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis referred to the Church as “a place of mercy freely given, where everyone can feel welcomed, loved, forgiven and encouraged to live the good life of the Gospel” and as a “community [that] has an endless desire to show mercy”. In The Name of God is Mercy he says, “The Church does not exist to condemn people but to bring about an encounter with the visceral love of God’s mercy.” And in this church, he emphasizes the need for merciful shepherds, not modern-day “scholars of the law.” Says he, “Jesus sends forth his disciples not as holders of power or as masters of a law. He sends them forth into the world asking them to live in the logic of love and selflessness… by embracing the outcast, the marginalised and the sinner.”
Merciful Priests and Compassionate Confessors
When asked about the “merciful priests” he met in his life, Pope Francis mentions, among others, a priest to whom many people from all walks of life would go to confess. He came to Fr. Bergoglio with a problem: “I forgive a lot,” he said, “and sometimes I have doubts, I wonder if I have forgiven too much.” Fr. Bergoglio asked him what he did when he had those doubts. The priest said: “I go to our chapel and stand in front of the tabernacle and say to Jesus: “Lord, forgive me if I have forgiven too much. But you are the one who gave me the bad example.” When hearing confessions, Pope Francis says he often thought about his own sins and his need for mercy, “and so I tried to forgive a great deal.”
Pope Francis admits that some of the most profound and life-shaping experiences he has ever had were “while sitting in the confessional listening to the stories of suffering, failure, despair, and sin.” He tells confessors, “People are looking for someone to listen to them. Someone willing to grant them time, to listen to their dramas and difficulties. I feel compelled to say to confessors: talk, listen with patience, and above all tell people that God loves them.”
Gems of Mercy from The Name of God is Mercy
- “Mercy: the bridge that connects God and man, opening our hearts to the hope of being loved forever despite our sinfulness.”
- “The Lord never tires of forgiving: never! It is we who tire of asking him for forgiveness.”
- [We need] “a Church that doesn’t reproach men for their fragility and their wounds but treats them with the medicine of mercy.”
- “A shattered heart is the most pleasing gift to God.”
- “Lord, forgive me if I have forgiven too much. But you’re the one who gave me the bad example!”
- “God forgives not with a decree, but with a caress.”
- “Shame is a grace: when one feels the mercy of God, he feels a great shame for himself and for his sin.”
- “The family… is the first school of mercy, because it is there that we have been loved and learned to love, have been forgiven and learned to forgive.”
- “His mercy is infinitely greater than our sins; his medicine is infinitely stronger than our illnesses…”
- “Only he who has been touched and caressed by the tenderness of his mercy really knows the Lord.”
- “Compassion is needed today to conquer the globalization of indifference…”
- “Every time I go through the gates into a prison to celebrate Mass or for a visit, I always think: why them and not me?”
Fr. K. J. Louis SDB is a well- known writer, editor and preacher
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