Saturday, October 3, 2015

What Are the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy?

Prints of Grace © Trisha Niermeyer Potter

Back in 2014 when I was selected to give the Action talk on a Cursillo Women's team, I created the above slide enumerating the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy to go along with my presentation.

These 14 "Thou Shalts" (as opposed to The 10 Commandments, which are a mix of Thou Shalts and Thou Shalt Nots) are the nuts and bolts of the ways we are to reach out to others in love, so I built my talk around these stalwarts of faith and service to others.

Since then, Pope Francis has declared that this coming year will be a Holy Year of Mercy.

Here is an excerpt from the Vatican  Radio's English translation of Pope Francis' homily in which he makes the announcement:
"Dear brothers and sisters, I have often thought about how the Church might make clear its mission of being a witness to mercy. It is [a] journey that begins with a spiritual conversion. For this reason, I have decided to call an extraordinary Jubilee that is to have the mercy of God at its center. It shall be a Holy Year of Mercy. We want to live this Year in the light of the Lord's words: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. (cf. Lk 6:36)”
This Holy Year will begin on this coming Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception and will end on November 20, 2016, the Sunday dedicated to Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe – and living face of the Father’s mercy. I entrust the organization of this Jubilee to the Pontifical Council for Promotion of the New Evangelization, that [the dicastery] might animate it as a new stage in the journey of the Church on its mission to bring to every person the Gospel of mercy.
I am convinced that the whole Church will find in this Jubilee the joy needed to rediscover and make fruitful the mercy of God, with which all of us are called to give consolation to every man and woman of our time. From this moment, we entrust this Holy Year to the Mother of Mercy, that she might turn her gaze upon us and watch over our journey."
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