The Jubilee Year of Mercy will begin on The Solemnity of The Immaculate Conception on 8 December 2015. The year will end on The Feast of Christ The King, 20 November 2016. Pope Francis is offering us this Year of Mercy as an extra opportunity to show love and compassion to all whom we meet in our daily lives. We fully understand all that this means, as so many of us have witnessed in our lives love and mercy in many ways. Little incidents where the giver and the receiver have benefitted from an act of unconditional kindness and how these moments, these acts touch our hearts. Those of us blessed to have more time to give to others, will appreciate this reminder and wake-up call to action. We can be living examples of what it means to be merciful in our conversations with those around us and in our little acts of kindness and compassion to others.
Pope Francis has composed a special prayer for the Jubilee Year of Mercy. In the prayer, the Holy Father entreats the Lord to make the Jubilee of Mercy a year of grace so that the Church, “with renewed enthusiasm, may bring good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives and the oppressed, and restore sight to the blind.”
Pope Francis’ Mercy prayer:
Lord Jesus Christ,
you have taught us to be merciful like the heavenly Father,
and have told us that whoever sees you sees Him.
Show us your face and we will be saved.
Your loving gaze freed Zacchaeus and Matthew from being enslaved by money;
the adulteress and Magdalene from seeking happiness only in created things;
made Peter weep after his betrayal,
and assured Paradise to the repentant thief.
Let us hear, as if addressed to each one of us, the words that you spoke to the Samaritan woman:
“If you knew the gift of God!”
You are the visible face of the invisible Father,
of the God who manifests his power above all by forgiveness and mercy:
let the Church be your visible face in the world, its Lord risen and glorified.
You willed that your ministers would also be clothed in weakness
in order that they may feel compassion for those in ignorance and error:
let everyone who approaches them feel sought after, loved, and forgiven by God.
Send your Spirit and consecrate every one of us with its anointing,
so that the Jubilee of Mercy may be a year of grace from the Lord,
and your Church, with renewed enthusiasm, may bring good news to the poor,
proclaim liberty to captives and the oppressed,
and restore sight to the blind.
We ask this through the intercession of Mary, Mother of Mercy,
you who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever and ever.
Amen.
