A priest told me what happened to him once at Mass, at the beginning of the Gospel reading. He played the passage that tells how many crippled, blind, crippled, deaf and dumb people and others came to Jesus to lay at his feet and he healed them. Then "Jesus called his disciples to him and said to them, 'I have compassion on the crowds, for they have been with me for three days now and have nothing to eat...'" (Mt 15:32).

At this point in his reading, the priest had to stop for a few moments. He had a lump in his throat. He had passed over that text many times, as he had also read that, on another occasion, "Jesus saw a crowd and had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd" (Mk 6:32). But it had never affected him in that way. 

We live in a time of mercy. This does not refer only to Lent, but to the time we Catholics live in, with roots in the last century. St. Faustina Kowalska, "apostle of Divine Mercy," died in 1938, and was beatified and canonized by John Paul II. "The light of Divine Mercy - he affirmed in the homily of the canonization of Sister Faustina - will illuminate the path of the men of the third millennium". The Polish Pope established the second Sunday of Easter as Mercy Sunday. In our days, Francis has made mercy (as well as tenderness, closeness and other manifestations of charity) the emblem of his pontificate.

That is why the meeting with the clergy of Rome, on March 6, is so emblematic, in which the Pope affirmed precisely this and developed it in the first part of his speech: "We are living in a time of mercy, for thirty years or more, until now. (...) In the whole Church it is the time of mercy". And he proposed to priests to give priority to the sacrament of Reconciliation and, at the same time, to the works of mercy.

In a second step, the Pope asked himself what mercy means for priests. As a fruit of contemplating the image of the Good Shepherd, he points out: "The priest is a man of mercy and compassion, close to his people and servant of all. This is a pastoral criterion that I would like to stress very much: closeness!" And Francis adds that the priest demonstrates this particularly in administering the sacrament of Reconciliation, the confession of sins; especially if he himself has known how to confess well, allowing himself to be embraced by God the Father. 

He tells of an Argentinean priest, a great confessor, who was afraid of "forgiving too much", but he would ask the Lord for forgiveness before the Tabernacle, and he would leave peacefully.

At this point of his speech the Pope evokes his way of seeing the Church as a "field hospital"; because, he says, there are so many wounds to be healed, because of material problems, scandals, also in the Church. And we priests must be there, close to the people: "Mercy means, above all, healing wounds". Even when - as the Mosaic law prescribed for lepers - there are those who turn away because they are ashamed to show their wounds; but deep down they want a caress. For this reason, Francis points out, we must ask ourselves if we know these wounds, if we sense them, if we are close to these people.

And from here he returns to the sacrament of Reconciliation, to point out that "mercy means neither laxity nor rigidity," neither laxity nor rigorism. It is normal, he points out, that among confessors there are differences of style, but "these differences cannot affect the substance, that is to say, sound moral doctrine and mercy".

Neither the laxist nor the rigorist," Francis explains, "bears witness to Jesus Christ, because neither the one nor the other becomes position of the person he encounters. The rigorist washes his hands: in fact, he nails them to the law, understood in a cold and rigid way; the laxist also washes his hands: he is only apparently merciful, but in reality he does not take seriously the problem of that conscience, minimizing sin. True mercy becomes position of the person, listens to him attentively, approaches him with respect and truth to his status, and accompanies him on the path of reconciliation. And that is exhausting, yes, certainly! The truly merciful priest behaves like the Good Samaritan. But why does he do so? Because his heart is capable of compassion, it is the heart of Christ!"

In this way, he adds, the priest accompanies on the path of holiness, knowing how to suffer with and for people, as a father and mother suffer for their children. This implies that at times we must weep for our people, interceding for those in need before the tabernacle, and knowing how to "wrestle" with the Lord like Abraham (cf. Gen 18:22-33).

In the last part of his speech, the Pope returns to mercy in the ordinary attention of the priest, especially with children, the elderly and the sick: "Do you know how to caress them, or are you ashamed to caress an old man? Do not be ashamed of your brother's flesh".

And he gives the counterexample of the priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan. They did not know how to approach the person attacked by the bandits, because their hearts were closed. Perhaps they justified themselves in their commitments or lack of time, excuses after all: "Excuses! Their hearts were closed. And a closed heart always justifies what it does not do".

Instead," Francis observes, "the Samaritan opens his heart, allows himself to be moved in his heart, and this interior movement is translated into action internship, into a concrete and effective intervention to help the person. And he insists on his message: "At the end of time, only those who have not been ashamed of the flesh of their wounded and excluded brother will be allowed to contemplate the glorified flesh of Christ. I confess to you that sometimes I financial aid read the list on which I will be judged, it does me good: it is in Matthew 25".

The Pope concludes his meeting with the Roman clergy by appealing to the example of so many merciful priests who will be in heaven, also to ask them for that grace.

A lesson of mercy, in line with the Lenten message and with the preaching of the last weeks. A lesson that condenses the message of this first year of his pontificate. A message proclaimed, shouted, with one's own life, clear for those who want to see it.

In his tweet of March 13, one year into his pontificate, the Pope said order: "Pray for me". A concrete way to live mercy is to respond generously to this request from the one who is giving himself completely to the Church and to all people.