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Most Rev. Socrates Villegas, D.D.
4th World Apostolic Congress on Mercy
Day 2- UST
Your Eminence, your Excellency, your Excellency the Apostolic Nuncio, your Excellencies, your Reverent Brother and ministry, brothers and sisters in the mercy of god. Who among us has not heard those words, Jesus is the face of the mercy of god.
We have heard those words. Mercy is the essence of Christianity. When you look at the eyes of Jesus, those eyes are eyes of mercy. When you look at the pierce hand of Jesus, those hands of hands of mercy, when you look at the pierce side of Jesus that opens us to the heart of the mercy of god and the essence of the gospel is mercy and yet it is so difficult to find mercy in the world that god has created.
We need mercy and yet we are afraid to show mercy, instead of mercy there is terror. Instead of mercy, there is anger. Instead of mercy, there is death penalty. Instead of mercy, there is revenge. Why? Because we are afraid to look at mercy in the eyes and we are afraid that mercy will challenge us merciful and we are not ready.
Can we be afraid of mercy? Yes, we are afraid of mercy and all the signs that show that we are a people afraid of mercy. First, there is the fire of scarcity. There is the fire of being emptied. There is the fire of nothingness. There is the fire of being considered nothing, but brothers and sisters did not “Saint Paul” teach us that he emptied himself and took the former of a slave being born in the likeness of men.
And when was the mercy of god shown at its height and its death. When the tomb was empty, in the emptiness of the tomb, in the nothingness of the tomb, the mercy of god is proclaimed and yet we are afraid to empty our selves. We are afraid to follow Jesus in his kenosis in this generation that grabs, that accumulates.
We are afraid to have nothing it is only when we have nothing that we can truly allow the gospel of mercy to really shine through us. When we become so full of our selves, when we become so full of our attachments, when we become so full on our personal dreams and ambitions, then mercy becomes impossible to live. Mercy becomes impossible to share, afraid of empty, afraid of nothingness, afraid of scarcity.
The great obstacle for the world to becoming a merciful world is self mercy. When we think we have the most serving of all mercy and we are afraid that mercy will run out, when we start to give it.
The second fear that prevents us from being merciful is the fear of being Oppose. The gospel of mercy signed of contradiction and the gospel of mercy will disturb the promoters of the culture of death. When you fight the enemy, when you fight evil, evil will strike you back, and so we choose to keep quite in the caves of our security. In the caves of our safety so that people will say nothing against us.
But brothers and sisters in Christ, the destiny of people to show of mercy is martyrdom, and martyrdom is a great act of mercy. And if you want to become a world that is capable of showing mercy, we must be ready to die for one another. If there is the greater love than to die for your beloved, there is no greater act of mercy than to die for those who do not even ask for our mercy.
Because that is how god dealt with us, when we were still sinners, god loves us. When we were most unfaithful, god died on the cross for us. Do not be afraid to be opposed. Do not be afraid of the cross. Do not be afraid for being martyrs for mercy, because that is the destiny of those who follow the Divine Mercy.
There is still the fear not just of a position but there is the fear, of being weak. We associate mercy with weakness, but believe me brothers and sisters, god is almighty because god is merciful, and the strength of god is in being merciful, is in being compassionate.
We are afraid, people will fool around. We are afraid, people will deceive us, and in order to protect ourselves, we withhold mercy. In order to protect ourselves, we do not like, we refuse in mercy, because nobody ever dare to call me foolish.
But isn’t that how Christians are called? Fools for Christ, if we are not ready to be called fools for the mercy of Christ, then we might be worshiping another god and not the god of mercy, afraid of emptying, afraid of being nothing, afraid of being opposed, afraid of pain and sufferings, afraid of being too soft and there is still another fear, the fear of silence. We always want to be doing something and yet the scripture are clear, be still and know that I am god.
The mercy of god challenges us that the essence of our Christianity is not in having, is not in acting, is not in doing, but in being. In being still, and in the silence to allow the language of god so speak to us. In the midst of the cacophony of noise in the world, the opposing glittering lights. Let us just choose to be quite, to be still and to allow that silence to speak to us.
And lastly the fear of waiting, mercy challenges us to wait for the kairos to wait for the right time to wait for Gods time. But we say time is gold and we say time is money and time lost can never be recovered. But it is the time that you spend with your rose that makes your rose very special. And it is the time that we spend in waiting that makes love truly awesome, truly Divine.
Brothers and Sisters, the mercy of god challenges us to wait. Do not be afraid to wait because love is patience and loves always peace. Do not be afraid to wait, even if it takes forever. Do not be afraid to kept quite to be still and allow the lord to speak to you. Do not be afraid of tenderness. Do not be afraid to be soft because only the strong can be merciful. Do not be afraid of being opposed. Do not be afraid of the gospel of mercy which is the gospel of contradiction.
It will be opposed by a world knows only death, it will be opposed the world that knows only revenged, it will be opposed by the society that knows only anger but stand up nevertheless and show to everybody that our best kept secret and no longer a secret to peace is mercy. Do not be afraid to have nothing, do not be afraid to be empty, brothers and sisters, I dare you, dare to be merciful. Do not be afraid to be merciful and it is by the power of our mercy.
Pattern after the mercy of the almighty that the world will see the peace, the freshness, the new life that it has been looking for all this years, dare to be merciful, do not be afraid to be merciful.
