A Pastor’s Thoughts: Called by Mercy, Called to Mission

Fr. Jim Muscatella, Blessed Trinity and St. Patrick’s Parishes —

On a day off from school, an ordinary young teenager felt a tug at his heart as he passed by his local parish church. He had been planning to use his freedom to meet some friends, other young men and women – in those days, he loved dancing. This afternoon, however, this young man’s steps were pulled elsewhere.

Going into the church, he found a priest whom he did not know. In this unplanned moment, with this unknown minister, this young man’s life was forever changed.

Sorrow for his sinfulness had driven this young man into the church that day, seeking the healing and freedom that the sacrament of Confession promises. The distance that he had felt from the Lord had drawn him in – in his sorrow, he was searching for a true, new nearness to his God.

Christ’s redeeming grace, at work in the priest’s words of Absolution, sent our young man from the confessional with a newfound strength in place of his sorrow. The extraordinary mercy of God had resoundingly responded to his self-confessed waywardness. His renewed heart was presented with the sure promise of a new way; our young man was to become a priest.

Catholic priests make promises to live chaste lives of prayer so that they may listen well to the voice of God and obediently cooperate with the superiors whom God will send them. This young man, however, was not satisfied with these weighty professions of devotion. At the age of 32, he was ordained a priest for the Society of Jesus, which saw him promising to follow Christ according to an additional vow of poverty.

Furthermore, all Jesuits (as members of the society are commonly called) vow to willingly and freely respond to the worldwide demands of the Christian mission, wherever that may call them. Having been drawn so near by Christ’s mercy in the confessional over a decade ago, this young priest was willing to go forth into life without a wife, children, riches, or even a country to call home. His entire life, lived in extraordinary integrity and in close imitation of Our Lord’s own generosity, was to be as a lifelong sermon proclaiming the glory and wonder of the God who had redeemed him.

Over his long life, this young priest would grow old following Christ – from the university lecture hall to the urban ghettos, across continents and through the decades, he preached the God of Mercy to sinners and the Lord of Hope to the hopeless. He would leave his homeland and family behind; with integrity to his calling, he would even be separated from the other members of his Society.

“Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come.” (Mark 10:29-30)

In his old age, in a hospital room far from the country and the confessional in which he had first heard Our Lord’s call, our old priest lay for agonizing weeks, hovering until his untimely death. He personally held no titles to any lands, nor the deed to a single house. He had no children of his own, and his mother had long since passed. He had known many persecutions, and he had naysayers aplenty. Yet, despite all the troubles, there was perhaps no 88-year-old man who had a home in as many hearts as Pope Francis has.

Francis, called as a mere adolescent by God’s mercy, spent his life calling out to the world about his merciful God – and the world listened.

During our yearly observance of Christ’s Passion, we Christians behold the Crucifix. The God of Mercy hangs on the Cross for you and me, mercifully offering His redemption for our sins, extending His Life into our death. Our lot is to respond like Francis: may Christ’s mercy call us, change us, and send us.