The first major encyclical by Francis is a Sunday
sermon that lasted all but a few minutes. The new Pope speaks off-the-cuff from the Ambon of the small parish church of Saint Anne, inside the Vatican walls: "The message of Jesus is mercy. For me, I say this humbly, it is the Lord’s most powerful message."
We live in a society that makes us less and less used to recognizing our responsibilities and accepting them: it is always the others, in fact, who make mistakes. It is always the others who are immoral; it is always someone else's fault, never ours. Also, sometimes we have experienced a certain reverse clericalism dedicated only to "regularising" the lives of the people, through the imposition of prerequisites and bans that stifle freedom and add heaviness to an already exhausting daily life. Ready to condemn rather than accept. Able to judge, but not to bend down on the miseries of humanity. The message of mercy, the heart of this first unwritten encyclical by the Pope, simultaneously demolishes both clichés.
Pope Francis commented on the Gospel piece about the adulteress, the woman that the scribes and Pharisees wanted to stone as prescribed by Mosaic law. Jesus saves her life, asking those without sin to cast the first stone: they all leave. "Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on, sin no more."
The Pontiff, referring to the scribes and Pharisees who had dragged the woman to be stoned in front of the man from Nazareth, said: "Sometimes even we like to beat others down, to condemn others."
The first and only step required to get an experience of mercy, Francis explained, is to recognize that we are in need of mercy. "Jesus has come for us, when we recognize that we are sinners," he said. It is enough not to copy the Pharisee who, standing before the altar, thanked God for not being "like all the other men." If we're like that Pharisee, if we believe we are righteous, "then we do not know the heart of the Lord, and we shall not ever have the joy of feeling this mercy!" Those accustomed to judging others, to feeling at peace, to considering themselves righteous and good, do not feel the need to be embraced and forgiven. And instead, there are some who feel it, but think they are irredeemable, because of too many bad actions.
In this regard, the Pope spoke about a dialogue which took place in a confessional where a man, hearing this about mercy, had replied to Bergoglio: "Oh, father, if you knew my life, you would not speak like that! I have done very bad things!" And he replied: "Better! Go to Jesus: he likes it if you tell him these things! He forgets, He has a special ability to forget. He kisses you, He embraces you, and He says to you: 'Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now, on, sin no more' That is the only advice he gives you. After a month, we are in the same condition ... Let us return to the Lord. The Lord never gets tired of forgiving: never! It is we who get tired of asking him for forgiveness. And let us ask for the grace of never tiring of asking pardon, for He never tires of pardoning.”
God never tires of accepting and forgiving, if only we can recognize that we are in need of his forgiveness. This is the first unwritten major encyclical of the new Pope. They will say: but this has always been the heart of the Christian message. Yet, from the last four days, Francis's simple and deep words are a breath of oxygen. For many, exactly because they show the side of a Church that does not rub people's faces in their fragility and wounds, but that heals them with the medicine of mercy.