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<h1 class="">Commandments are a part of God’s mercy, cardinal says at Mass welcoming gay Catholics</h1>
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<div class="">by <strong><a href="http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/author/staff-reporter/" title="Posts by Staff Reporter" rel="author">Staff Reporter</a></strong></div>
<div class="">posted Monday, 11 May 2015ű<a href="http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/05/11/commandments-are-a-part-of-gods-mercy-cardinal-says-at-mass-welcoming-gay-catholics/">http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/05/11/commandments-are-a-part-of-gods-mercy-cardinal-says-at-mass-welcoming-gay-catholics/</a></div>
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<div class=""><img src="http://d2jkk5z9de9jwi.cloudfront.net/content/uploads/2014/02/PA-7088322-800x500.jpg" class="" alt="Cardinal Vincent Nichols (PA)" height="500" width="800"> <div class="">
Cardinal Vincent Nichols (PA) </div>
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<p class="">Cardinal Nichols celebrated Mass at Farm Street Jesuit church in central London</p>
<p>On Sunday Cardinal Vincent Nichols celebrated Mass at the
Immaculate Conception church in Farm Street, central London, during a
pastoral visit to the parish. </p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Following <a href="http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2013/01/02/archbishop-nichols-ends-soho-masses-after-six-years/">an earlier decision by Cardinal Nichols</a>,
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.</p>
<p>A spokesman for the cardinal clarified that the Mass was not
specifically “for gay Catholics”, but for all Farm Street parishioners. </p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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”.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>“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. </p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p><strong>Full text of Cardinal Nichols’s Farm Street homily:<br>
</strong><br>
<em>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!’</em></p><em>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>These words, these actions, are all the work of God’s mercy.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>There is so much more I would wish to say!</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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!</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
</em><p><em>This is the mercy of God and truly for us it throws open the way forward! Alleluia! Alleluia!</em></p></div>