Here and Now with Francis 12/9/15 (Mary, Church, Christ, encounter, mercy, love, Vatican II)

By Anonymous

From the homily of Immaculate Conception, opening of Holy Door
When Gabriel entered her home, even the most profound and impenetrable of mysteries became for her [Mary] a cause for joy, faith and abandonment to the message revealed to her. The fullness of grace can transform the human heart and enable it to do something so great as to change the course of human history. [...]
The feast of the Immaculate Conception expresses the grandeur of God’s love. Not only does he forgive sin, but in Mary he even averts the original sin present in every man and woman who comes into this world. This is the love of God which precedes, anticipates and saves. [...]
This [Extraordinary Holy Year] will be a year in which we grow ever more convinced of God’s mercy. How much wrong we do to God and his grace when we speak of sins being punished by his judgment before we speak of their being forgiven by his mercy (cf. Saint Augustine, De Praedestinatione Sanctorum, 12, 24)! But that is the truth. We have to put mercy before judgment, and in any event God’s judgement will always be in the light of his mercy. [...]
Remember another door, which fifty years ago the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council opened to the world. The council was an encounter. A genuine encounter between the Church and the men and women of our time.[...]
It was the resumption of a journey of encountering people where they live: in their cities and homes, in their workplaces. [full text]

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