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“What might a more merciful family or school or parish or workplace or diocese look like?”
This is the question posed by the New Zealand Catholic Bishops in their recent Pastoral Letter.
“We are not here to give answers but let us all look to the example the Holy Father, Pope Francis, is giving us.”
“The personal motto he had as Archbishop of Buenos Aires he has retained as Pope. It reads miserando atque eligendo, and comes from a homily of Saint Bede the Venerable (Homily 21) in which he is commenting on the extraordinary choice of Jesus to include Matthew – the unpopular and probably corrupt tax collector – among his Apostles.”
“Why would Jesus choose Matthew? How could Jesus choose him? The answer lies in the heart of Jesus: filled with mercy, Jesus is able to see Matthew in a new light; filled with mercy our Lord comprehends the tax collector Matthew in a new way; filled with mercy Jesus recognizes within Matthew an already existing goodness to which others had been blind.”
The Bishops are encouraging Catholics to read chapters 25 and 26 of the book of Leviticus.
“You may well be surprised at what you learn. Jubilee years are not a kind of soft, sanctimonious, experience. They are about justice and forgiveness, right relationship with God, with one another, and with the land.”
We learn in reading Leviticus that Jubilee Years bring God’s expectations of us into the nitty gritty of:
- farming practices
- land utilisation, the property market
- wages and salaries
- debt relief
- the setting of invoices and bills
“When lived well, a Jubilee Year is a practical experience of the restoration of fairness and goodness, and therefore of grounded holiness where we experience the awe and joy of doing what is right in the eyes of God.”
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