Dives in Misericordia: “The Mercy of God in the Mission of the Church” (15, continued)

Chapter 8 of “Dives in Misericordia” (“Rich in Mercy”) is entitled “The Prayer of the Church in Our Times.” It continues as follows:

“15. . . . Let us offer up our petitions, directed by the faith, by the hope, and by the charity which Christ has planted in our hearts. This attitude is likewise love of God, whom modern man has sometimes separated far from himself, made extraneous to himself, proclaiming in various ways that God is ‘superfluous.’ This is, therefore, love of God, the insulting rejection of whom by modern man we feel profoundly, and we are ready to cry out with Christ on the cross: ‘Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.’¹³⁷ At the same time it is love of people, of all men and women without any exception or division: without difference of race, culture, language, or world outlook, without distinction between friends and enemies. This is love for people – it desires every true good for each individual and for every human community, every family, every nation, every social group, for young people, adults, parents, the elderly – a love for everyone, without exception. This is love, or rather an anxious solicitude to ensure for each individual every true good and to remove and drive away every sort of evil.”

 

137. Luke 23:34.

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Pope John Paul II: “Dives in Misericordia”