Our Sacred Stories ~ Remembering Who We Are: Disciples of Love and Mercy

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.

[Pope Francis. “Face of Mercy” 8 Dec 15]

These are the words of Pope Francis as he opened the Holy Year of Mercy in 2015.  They reflect  the spirit of missionary discipleship to which Pope Francis called the whole Church two years earlier.  In 2013 he expressed this missionary spirit in a kind of manifesto for the Church.   Francis did so in an address entitled Evangelii Gaudium [Joy of the Gospel].  In some ways, he was setting forth his hopes, dreams and character of Church in which he was called to serve.

Very recently, in a homily, our new Pope, Leo XIV expressed much the same hopes and dreams.  As he spoke, he called for openness, inclusiveness and a readiness to reach out to all.  Pope Leo seemed to be following the path that Francis set back in 2013.  We are to be missionaries who listen, accompany and express a willingness to be in service to all we encounter.

A Christian community, a Church that lives and acts in this way, as missionaries with open and inclusive hearts follows in the footsteps of Jesus the Christ.  The Gospel writer John captures this image of Jesus and of his disciples:

                I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. 

Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have

love for one another.  (John 13:34-35)

Throughout the Easter Season we hear from John.  We focus on the experiences the first disciples had of the Risen Jesus.  After Jesus had given himself up to death on the Cross, he continued to be present among these followers.  This presence was not a physical presence, but it was just as real and meaningful.  It was also a presence that led them to make sense of all that Jesus had passed onto them.  They became aware of what we have come to call the Paschal Mystery (the life, death, resurrection and continuing presence of Jesus).  It led them to commit themselves to his mission.

The experience of the risen Jesus deeply changed the disciples.  Fundamentally, they recognized that Jesus had sacrificed his life for them.  Further, they came to see that his sacrifice went beyond them to all of humanity.  Thus, they were on fire to proclaim this good news of his message and carry out his mission to the world.

What the disciples were now to do was share and what they had been given.  The writer John speaks of a new commandment as the way in which the disciples will proclaim this good news of God’s love.  In another place, in a letter to fellow Christians, it is even more clearly proclaimed that God’s love given to us leads to our loving one another:

                This is the love I mean: not our love for God, but God’s love for us when he sent

                his Son to be the sacrifice that takes our sin away....  We are to love, then, because

                he loved us first.  (1 John 4:10, 19)