Christianity is unique because it is the only faith which proclaims the good news that God “became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1, 14) in the person of Jesus Christ. God’s intimacy is open for all those who want to enter into communion with him, mainly by abiding to his lifegiving word. “If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (Jn 14, 23).

The Biblical God is the one who lovingly protects his people. Jesus’ lament over Jerusalem has been centering on her total and violent resistance to God’s protective love from her enemies. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! (Lk 13, 34).

“God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4, 16). If people fail to see God in himself, God has the power to make himself known through those who have encountered him personally. Two people who made God’s merciful face visible in this world were St Basil the Great and St Francis of Assisi.

St Basil the Great knew his conversion to Christ by discovering God’s Word. Being aware that the world with its successes could never satisfy his deep inner cravings for fulfillment Basil confessed: “One day, waking up from a deep sleep, I turned to the wonderful light of the truth of the Gospels … and cried over my miserable life” (cf. Letters 223: PG 32, 824a). “Attracted by Christ, I began to look to him and listen to him alone (cf. Moralia 80, 1: PG 31, 860bc)”. By God’s grace, St Basil was intelligent enough to harmonize the Christ of the Gospels with the Christ present in the poor, the sick and the needy. The merciful Christ led Basil to build hospitals and speak to the rulers of his time to relieve the sufferings of the people.

Likewise, St Francis of Assisi had the same spiritual itinerary. After meeting Christ in solitary prayer, he was led by the Lord to encounter him in the lepers. In his Testament St Francis wrote: “The Lord granted me, Brother Francis, to begin to do penance in this way: While I was in sin, it seemed very bitter to me to see lepers. And the Lord Himself led me among them and I had mercy upon them.” For St Francis, mercy is the privileged vehicle through which God’s merciful love is experienced first hand.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matt 5, 7). The merciful not only give witness to God’s mercy to the world but also continually experience Christ’s loving mercy for them. Let us embrace mercy: the point of convergence between God’s face and and the human person’s face.

Fr Mario Attard OFM Cap