For a previous reflection of mine on the gospel of text of today: <<CLICK HERE>>. What follows is as reflection on the gospel of today in the context of the Year of Mercy, which is also the Jubilee year.
The Jubilee Year
It is so meaningful that in this “Year of Mercy”, as we begin to listen to the Gospel of Luke during this Ordinary Time in the liturgical calendar of Year C, we hear Jesus proclaiming “a year of favour from the Lord” (Lk 4:19; Is 61:2).
The connotation to the Year of the Lord in Isaiah is inspired by what is found in the Book of Leviticus (25:10-17):
You will declare this fiftieth year to be sacred and proclaim the liberation of all the country’s inhabitants. You will keep this as a jubilee… in it you will not sow, you will not harvest the grain that has come up on its own or in it gather grapes from your untrimmed vine. The jubilee will be a holy thing for you; during it you will eat whatever the fields produce. … If you buy land from, or sell land to, your fellow-countryman, neither of you may exploit the other. … So you will not exploit one another, but fear your God, for I am Yahweh your God.
In other words, the Jubilee year in the Book of Leviticus is tied to the mercy of God which is to be lived out by every believer. What Isaiah proclaims is a special year of Jubilee that is really out of the fiftieth year (7 times 7 is equal to 49; and hence the 50th year will be a Sabbath Year = Jubilee Year). Isaiah’s promise comes to the people of Israel at a time of oppression, when they thought the Lord God was very far away. It is this same message of the special Jubilee Year that Jesus proclaims as he begins his public ministry in the gospel narrative of today.
Pope Francis wrote on the Divine Mercy Sunday of 2015, proclaiming a special Jubilee Year:
Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy. …We need constantly to contemplate the mystery of mercy. It is a wellspring of joy, serenity, and peace. Our salvation depends on it. … At times we are called to gaze even more attentively on mercy so that we may become a more effective sign of the Father’s action in our lives. For this reason I have proclaimed an Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy as a special time for the Church, a time when the witness of believers might grow stronger and more effective.
As we well know the Year of Mercy began on 8th December 2015. “The Jubilee year will close with the liturgical Solemnity of Christ the King on 20 November 2016.”
This year of mercy invites us to contemplate and experience the mystery of the mercy of God. And as we do so, to imbibe a little bit of that mercy in our own attitude towards others: “Merciful like the Father,” so goes the motto of this year. And as we do so, we will have the same vision of the Good Shepherd who goes after the strayed, and brings home the wounded – as portrayed in the icon of the Year of Mercy. To begin with, I need to acknowledge that I am that wounded sheep; I am that straying sheep; and I experience the Lord bringing me home. In that journey back home, I begin to see my brother with the eye of the Shepherd too. This is the gist of the Year of Mercy.
The Meaning of Mercy as Emerging from the Gospel of Today
The Scriptural meaning ‘mercy’ is very varied and equally deep. We will explore that in the coming weeks. In the light of Jesus’ mission statement, borrowed from Isaiah, as we heard read in the gospel text of today, it seems to me that mercy could also imply the following:
Mercy is bringing “good news to the afflicted;”
Mercy is proclaiming “liberty to captives”;
Mercy is giving “sight to the blind”;
Mercy is letting “the oppressed go free”.
These dimensions of mercy are what the Father in Jesus Christ makes us experience; and it is this mercy that we are called to share: “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (Lk 6:36, RSV).
To be able to be merciful in the dimensions that Jesus proclaims in the synagogue at Nazara, we need to experience…
Mercy as good news to us in our affliction and poverty;
Mercy as liberty in our captivity;
Mercy as sight in our blindness; and
Mercy as freedom in our oppression.
Pope Francis makes this connection in his letter, as he invites us to express in the contemporary world that mercy that we have experienced (Misercordiae Vultus, no.16):
This Holy Year will bring to the fore the richness of Jesus’ mission echoed in the words of the prophet (Isaiah): to bring a word and gesture of consolation to the poor, to proclaim liberty to those bound by new forms of slavery in modern society, to restore sight to those who can see no more because they are caught up in themselves, to restore dignity to all those from whom it has been robbed. The preaching of Jesus is made visible once more in the response of faith which Christians are called to offer by their witness.
What is the Prerequisite?
There seems to be something unconditional about mercy. Mercy by its very definition is unmerited. It is gratuitous. I am offered mercy even when I don’t deserve it. It is something beyond my expectation. What is our response? We need to show a faithful abandonment of ourselves to God’s will (MV, no.20). That is it.
Are we also express mercy towards our neighbours magnanimously – without expecting our prerequisite? It is through the experience of that unconditional mercy that others are also likely to respond in love. This seems to me to be the significance of the Jubilee Year that we celebrate, and it is the Year of the Favour of the Lord that Jesus proclaims in the gospel text of this Sunday.
May these words become fulfilled in our hearing!