Chapter 8 of “Dives in Misericordia” (“Rich in Mercy”) is entitled “The Prayer of the Church in Our Times.” It, and the document, concludes as follows:
“15. . . . In the name of Jesus Christ crucified and risen, in the spirit of His messianic mission, enduring in the history of humanity, we raise our voices and pray that the Love which is in the Father may once again be revealed at this stage of history, and that, through the work of the Son and Holy Spirit, it may be shown to be present in our modern world and to be more powerful than evil: more powerful than sin and death. We pray for this through the intercession of her who does not cease to proclaim ‘mercy...from generation to generation,’ and also through the intercession of those for whom there have been completely fulfilled the words of the Sermon on the Mount: ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.’139
“In continuing the great task of implementing the Second Vatican Council, in which we can rightly see a new phase of the self-realization of the Church – in keeping with the epoch in which it has been our destiny to live – the Church herself must be constantly guided by the full consciousness that in this work it is not permissible for her, for any reason, to withdraw into herself. The reason for her existence is, in fact, to reveal God, that Father who allows us to ‘see’ Him in Christ.140 No matter how strong the resistance of human history may be, no matter how marked the diversity of contemporary civilization, no matter how great the denial of God in the human world, so much the greater must be the Church's closeness to that mystery which, hidden for centuries in God, was then truly shared with man, in time, through Jesus Christ.”
139. Matthew 5:7.
140. Cf. John 14:9.
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