[Grem] Commandments - a part of God's mercy / to gay Catholics

[Emoke Greschik]

 Latest News <http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/section/news/>
Commandments are a part of God’s mercy, cardinal says at Mass welcoming gay
Catholics
by *Staff Reporter <http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/author/staff-reporter/>*
posted Monday, 11 May 2015Ĺą
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/05/11/commandments-are-a-part-of-gods-mercy-cardinal-says-at-mass-welcoming-gay-catholics/
 [image: Cardinal Vincent Nichols (PA)]
Cardinal Vincent Nichols (PA)

Cardinal Nichols celebrated Mass at Farm Street Jesuit church in central
London

On Sunday Cardinal Vincent Nichols celebrated Mass at the Immaculate
Conception church in Farm Street, central London, during a pastoral visit
to the parish.

It was the first time the cardinal has celebrated a Mass “welcoming” gay
Catholics, according to the LGBT Catholics Westminster Pastoral Council,
the group that organises Sunday evening gatherings after Mass at the church.

Following an earlier decision by Cardinal Nichols
<http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2013/01/02/archbishop-nichols-ends-soho-masses-after-six-years/>,
the LGBT Catholics Westminster Pastoral Council moved its gatherings from
the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory in London’s Soho to
the Jesuit Church of the Immaculate Conception in March 2013.

A spokesman for the cardinal clarified that the Mass was not specifically
“for gay Catholics”, but for all Farm Street parishioners.

In his homily, the Archbishop of Westminster reflected on the gift of God’s
mercy ahead of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy announced by Pope Francis.

Cardinal Nichols set the theme by saying that, “with great attentiveness to
our Holy Father, we are all to think deeply about what is meant by the
mercy of God and about how it enters our lives and about all that this
mercy asks of us”.

He went to explain that “in the person of Jesus we see God’s mercy fully
revealed … our destiny spelt out in full” and “the remarkable way in which
God makes it possible for us to attain that destiny.”

“Above all else is God’s call to us to turn again to him, no matter the
mess we may be in. God’s mercy draws our eyes beyond our self-centredness,
our preoccupation with our own sense of being acceptable or accepted, to
see again the glory that he has for us if only we would let him shape our
lives afresh. God’s mercy, in a word, is our opportunity for conversion,”
the cardinal said.

He added: “The commandments of God are given to us precisely as a mercy.
They are not, in some strange way, more important than mercy. They are not
rules imposed from the outside that above all else have to be obeyed. They
are given to help us to live the pathway of our true dignity and highest
calling.”


*Full text of Cardinal Nichols’s Farm Street homily: *
*In our first reading this evening, we have heard these bold words of St
Peter: ‘God does not have any favourites, but anyone who fears God and does
what is right is acceptable to God!’*

* What amazing words these must have been to their first hearers, a people
schooled in the need to appease God, to conform, conscious of the various
ways in which some were fiercely excluded from the community of faith.
Perhaps these words are surprising to us in our day too. These words are
the prelude to a great opening of the community of Christians to those
thought of as beyond its boundaries – the pagans. It becomes clear that an
openness of heart is the key entry requirement for baptism and therefore
onto the road of faith. These words, these actions, are all the work of
God’s mercy. Much is being said at this time about the mercy of God. It is
held up by some as the aspect of our faith that will solve the painful
dilemmas and ambiguities we face. So, with great attentiveness to our Holy
Father, we are all to think deeply about what is meant by the mercy of God
and about how it enters our lives and about all that this mercy asks of us.
Perhaps we can make a small start this evening. The mercy of God is the
shape taken by God’s love in the face of the mess we make of our lives and
of our world. The love and mercy of God are inseparable. Both are shown in
everything that God gives to us: our very existence, our faith, our
vocation or calling in life, the commandments, the sacraments of the
Church, the gift of prayer – all are rightly to be understood as the gift
of God’s mercy. Creation is God’s first act of mercy: he has created me
when there is no absolute need for me ever to exist; he has created me to
know him, love him and serve him and to be happy with him forever. This is
God’s great mercy: that my life is not pointless, futile, as many secretly
fear, but crowned with a most glorious destiny: to be with him for all
eternity. The deepest desire of the Father’s heart is that I achieve that
glorious destiny. And to make that come about, God pours out upon me an
endless stream of mercy, never tiring in his love. St John tells us more
about this work of God’s merciful love. He writes: ‘God’s love for us was
revealed when God sent into the world his only Son so that we could have
life through him … who is the sacrifice that takes our sins away’ (1 John
4.9). In the person of Jesus we see God’s mercy fully revealed. In him we
not only see our destiny spelt out in full, but also the remarkable way in
which God makes it possible for us to attain that destiny. For each one of
us Jesus is indeed our beginning and our end, our Alpha and our Omega. In
the Gospel passage we have just heard, St John opens for us the mind of
Jesus. Jesus says to us: ‘I have made known to you everything I have
learned from my Father.’ And that ‘everything’ is made known, with absolute
clarity, in his death and resurrection. We are called to share in that
resurrection. This is the true purpose in life. This is the Father’s plan.
It is this that Jesus makes known: the true secret of our humanity, the
essence of what it is to be a human being. Here we learn how truly to
understand ourselves. And it is made possible by following the path and
pattern of Jesus, receiving our victory through his death, resurrection,
ascension and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Only with this purpose and
pattern at the centre of our minds do we understand the mercy of God. This
mercy is the force of love that wants to draw us, drag us, cajole us,
inspire us to strive for our true destiny and never to be satisfied with
anything less. God’s mercy, then, above all else is God’s call to us to
turn again to him, no matter the mess we may be in. God’s mercy draws our
eyes beyond our self-centredness, our preoccupation with our own sense of
being acceptable or accepted, to see again the glory that he has for us if
only we would let him shape our lives afresh. God’s mercy, in a word, is
our opportunity for conversion. There is so much more I would wish to say!
Those who counterpose the mercy of God and the commandments of God
misunderstand both mercy and commandment. The commandments of God are given
to us precisely as a mercy. They are not, in some strange way, more
important than mercy. They are not rules imposed from the outside that
above all else have to be obeyed. They are given to help us to live the
pathway of our true dignity and highest calling. As Pope Francis says,
commandments are not restrictions on our freedoms but indicators of our
freedom. Understanding the true purpose of the commandment helps us to see
how much we need God’s mercy. God’s mercy is misunderstood if it is taken
as something which enables us to overlook those commandments or somehow
imagine that we are excused their calling. Rather it is the eternal
restlessness of God’s love calling us again and again to raise our eyes
beyond the horizons we have set for ourselves, the limits of what we
believe we can manage, the limits of what we think can reasonably be asked
of us and to reach out again for the fullness of his love, opening our
hearts again to its light and joy. Mercy enables us to start out again. It
does not enable us to stop where we are, comfortable in a sense of being
accepted just as we are. Of course we are accepted. And of course we are
disturbed, disturbed by God’s love which is never quiet within us until it
has truly filled and reshaped us. Let us never try to quieten the call of
that great love! There is a lovely, disturbing saying attributed to St
Augustine which relates all this to the Eucharist, as many are striving to
do so at present. He says, as I recall, ‘See on the altar the sacrament of
who you are and of what you are to become.’ Yes, this sacrament is a
recognition and an affirmation of who we are: the body of Christ, striving
to live according to his heart, his will, in pursuit of that full vision of
our destiny laid out in the Paschal Mystery of his death and resurrection.
The reception of Holy Communion affirms us in this and is received with
integrity when this is our desire and the pattern of life for which we are
actively striving. But the Eucharist is more, so much more. It is also and
always the sacrament of our transformation, the sacrament of what we are to
become. We can never receive Holy Communion with a good heart and a right
intention unless we are willing to be changed, willing to be converted.
Holy Communion can never be reduced to a sign or badge of acceptability,
for it is always an invitation and a challenge to which we have to respond.
If we are to receive the Eucharist faithfully and worthily, then we must be
willing to be different, to be changed, everyone of us, by him whom we
receive. This is Eastertide, the continuing of the season of great joy and
boundless hope. Today we rejoice again in the Resurrection of the Lord who
triumphed over every obstacle that impedes us. The stone has been rolled
back from the door of our tomb too. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead
makes all the difference to the words he spoke to the woman caught
committing adultery, words which are indeed a proclamation of mercy. But
these words only reveal their full meaning when they are read in the light
of the Lord’s victory. ‘Has no one condemned you?’, he said. ‘No one, Lord’
she replied. ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin
again!’ (John 8.10). This is the great story of God’s mercy, not only
freeing us from the burden of our sin, not only calling us to repent and be
converted, but also, marvellously, making that conversion possible in our
lives through his grace and presence with us always. *

*This is the mercy of God and truly for us it throws open the way forward!
Alleluia! Alleluia!*
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