Collaboration and Mercy

The Church and the Congregation each have specific themes that they ask us to consider and embrace simultaneously.

Since Pentecost, the Congregation has called us to greater Vincentian Family Collaboration.  There have been multiple gatherings of the Vincentian Family on the local level, regional groups, and even nationally.  All the gatherings successfully bring family members together thus forging stronger bonds and an awareness of the impact that this great Vincentian Family is having on so many levels.

Our Holy Father, Francis, calls upon the entire Church as well as the Vincentian Family to a Holy Year of Mercy.  He entreats us all to be a door of mercy.  Pope Francis says that this Holy Year is “dedicated to living out in our daily lives the mercy which God constantly extends to all of us.”  “The Church’s very credibility is seen in how she shows merciful and compassionate love.”

The motto of this Holy Year is “Merciful like the Father.” We are called to “rediscover the richness encompassed by the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.”

As Vincentians, both of these themes are already so much a part of our lives and ministry.  The challenge that I heard at the National Gathering of the Vincentian Family Collaborators is how can we dig down deeper in the works that we have so the Mercy of God might shine even brighter in our common efforts at serving God’s beloved poor.

The Holy Year is just beginning. May each of us immerse ourselves in living God’s mercy anew.