John Paul II
DIVES IN MISERICORDIA ON THE MERCY OF GOD
His Holiness John Paul II To the Bishops, Priests, and Faithful of the
entire Catholic Church concerning the Divine Mercy.
To the Venerable Brothers, Beloved Sons and Daughters, Health and
Apostolic Benediction.
It is "God, who is rich in mercy"[1] whom Jesus Christ has revealed to us
as Father: It is his very Son who, in himself, has manifested him and
made him known to us.[2] Memorable in this regard is the moment when
Philip, one of the twelve apostles, turned to Christ and said: "Lord,
show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied"; and Jesus replied: "Have
I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me?. . . He who has seen
me has seen the Father."[3] These words were spoken during the farewell
discourse at the end of :he paschal supper, which was followed by the
events of those holy days during which confirmaion was to be given once
and for all of the fact that "God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great
love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our
trespasses, made us alive together with Christ."[4]
2. Following the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and paying close
attention to the special needs of our times, I devoted the encyclical
Redemptor Hominis to the truth about man, a truth that is revealed to us
in its fullness and depth in Christ. A no less important need in these
critical and difficult times impels me to draw attention once again in
Christ to the countenance of the "Father of mercies and God of all
comfort."[5] We read in the constitution Gaudium et Spes: "Christ the new
Adam . . . fully reveals man to himself and brings to light his lofty
calling," and does it "in the very revelation of the mystery of the
Father and of his love."[6] The words I have quoted are clear testimony
to the fact that man cannot be manifested in the full dignity of his
nature without reference--not only on the level of concepts but also in
an integrally existential way--to God. Man and man's lofty calling are
revealed in Christ through the revelation of the mystery of the Father
and his love.
3. For this reason it is now fitting to reflect on this mystery. It is
called for by the varied experiences of the church and of contemporary
man. It is also demanded by the pleas of many human hearts, their
sufferings and hopes, their anxieties and expectations. While it is true
that every individual human being is, as I said in my encyclical
Redemptor Hominis, the way for the church, at the same time the Gospel
and the whole of tradition constantly show us that we must travel this
way with every individual just as Christ traced it out by revealing in
himself the Father and his love.[7] In Jesus Christ, every path to man,
as it has been assigned once and for all to the church in the changing
context of the times, is simultaneously an approach to the Father and his
love. The Second Vatican Council has confirmed this truth for our time.
4. The more the church's mission is centered upon man--the more it is, so
to speak, anthropocentric--the more it must be confirmed and actualized
theocentrically, that is to say, be directed in Jesus Christ to the
Father. While the various currents of human thought both in the past and
at the present have tended and still tend to separate theocentrism and
anthropocentrism, and even to set them in opposition to each other, ehe
church, following Christ, seeks to link them up in human history in a
deep and organic way. And this is also one of the basic principles,
perhaps the most important one, of the teaching of the last council.
5. Since, therefore, in the present phase of the church's history we put
before ourselves as our primary task the implementation of the doctrine
of the great council, we must act upon this principle with faith, with an
open mind and with all our heart. In the encyclical already referred to,
I have tried to show that the deepening and the many-faceted enrichment
of the church's consciousness resulting from the council must open our
minds and our hearts more widely to Christ. Today I wish to say that
openness to Christ, who as the redeemer of the world fully "reveals man
to himself," can only be achieved through an ever more mature reference
to the Father and his love.
6. Although God "dwells in unapproachable light"[8] he speaks to man by
means of the whole of the universe: "ever since the creation of the world
his invisible nature, namely his eternal power and deity, has been
clearly perceived in the things that have been made."[9] This indirect
and imperfect knowledge, achieved by the intellect seeking God by means
of creatures through the visible world, falls short of "vision of the
Father." "No one has ever seen God," writes St. John, in order to stress
the truth that "the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has
made him known.[10]
7. This "making known" reveals God in the most profound mystery of his
being, one and three, surrounded by "unapproachable light."[11]
Nevertheless, through this "making known" by Christ we know God above
all in his relationship of love for man: in his "philanthropy."[12] It
is precisely here that "his invisible nature" becomes in a special way
"visible," incomparably more visible than through all the other "things
that have been made": It becomes visible in Christ and through Christ,
through his actions and his words, and finally through his death on the
cross and his resurrection.
8. In this way, in Christ and through Christ, God also becomes especially
visible in his mercy; that is to say, there is emphasized that attribute
of the divinity which the Old Testament, using various concepts and
terms, already defined as "mercy." Christ confers on the whole of the Old
Testament tradition about God's mercy a definitive meaning. Not only does
he speak of it and explain it by the use of comparisons and parables, but
above all he himself makes it incarnate and personifies it. He himself,
in a certain sense, is mercy. To the person who sees it in him--and finds
it in him--God becomes "visible" in a particular way as the Father "who
is rich in mercy."[13]
9. The present-day mentality, more perhaps than that of people in the
past, seems opposed to a God of mercy and in fact tends to exclude from
life and to remove from the human heart the very idea of mercy. The word
and the concept of "mercy" seem to cause uneasiness in man, who, thanks
to the enormous development of science and technology never before known
in history, has become the master of the earth and has subdued and
dominated it.[14] This dominion over the earth, sometimes understood in a
one-sided and superficial way, seems to leave no room for mercy.
10. However, in this regard we can profitably refer to the picture of
"man's situation in the world today" as described at the beginning of the
constitution Gaudium et Spes. Here we read the following sentences: "In
the light of the foregoing factors there appears the dichotomy of a world
that is at once powerful and weak, capable of doing what is noble and
what is base, disposed to freedom and slavery, progress and decline,
brotherhood and hatred. Man is growing conscious that the forces he has
unleashed are in his own hands and that it is up to him to control them
or be enslaved by them."[15]
11. The situation of the world today not only displays transformations
that give grounds for hope in a better future for man on earth, but also
reveals a multitude of threats far surpassing those known up till now.
Without ceasing to point out these threats on various occasions (as in
addresses to the United Nations, to UNESCO, to FAO and elsewhere), the
church must at the same time examine them in the light of the truth
received from God.
12. The truth revealed in Christ about God the "Father of mercies,"[16]
enables us to "see" him as particularly close to man, especially when
man is suffering, when he is under threat at the very heart of his
existence and dignity. And this is why, in the situation of the church
and the world today, many individuals and groups guided by a lively sense
of faith are turning, I would say almost spontaneously, to the mercy of
God. They are certainly being moved to do this by Christ himself, who
through his Spirit works within human ...
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