The Jubilee Year of Mercy has caught our imaginations and stirred our souls. Up and down England and Wales, in every diocese, we have heard accounts of hugely generous responses and enterprising initiatives. Parishes, schools, societies, cathedrals have all played their part.
The fruits can be seen in a much greater appreciation of the mercy that we receive from God, and in the mercy that we extend to others. The spiritual and the corporal works of mercy are being knitted back into our Catholic awareness. And this is happening at a time when the crisis of migrants and refugees is touching so many. I have been amazed at the extraordinary generosity of people.
Most profound of all, there is consistent evidence of a remarkable uptake in the celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. We all reach a moment when we want to get down on our knees, tell our story and seek the healing caress of the mercy and forgiveness of God. This is what has happened this year. It has been a great grace.
As we fall to our knees before the new-born babe of Bethlehem, let us thank him for these gifts. His pure light reveals the tawdriness of our lives. His outstretched arms welcome us, always, into the embrace of his love. Oh! Come, let us adore him!
+ Cardinal Vincent Nichols
Archbishop of Westminster
2016 has been a year of dramatic change in national and world affairs.
For many of you it will have been just as dramatic at a more personal level – perhaps through a change of job, the birth of a child or the loss of a loved one.
We should see this as a spiritual moment – a kind of examination of conscience, made in front of the crib.
For there, as we see a tiny helpless baby – who is God – struggle for warmth and comfort amid the mire and draughts of a refugee stable, we discover what the love of God for us means. Has 2016 brought us closer to one another and to God? Is there anything which disturbs my conscience which I should put right?
We have lived a Holy Year of Mercy, in which the Holy Father has asked us to both show and to experience mercy. As he wrote in his recent Apostolic Letter, Misericordia et misera: “There is no sin that God’s mercy cannot reach and wipe away when it finds a repentant heart seeking to be reconciled with the Father.” What wonderful, consoling words.
Perhaps we can carry forward the graces of the Year of Mercy into 2017, by committing ourselves to being people of mercy: people who make an effort to console those around us who are suffering.
May you experience a faith and hope and love-filled Christmas and a New Year filled with mercy, consolation and peace.
+ Philip Tartaglia
Archbishop of Glasgow
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