{"id":308218,"date":"2022-02-17T03:00:44","date_gmt":"2022-02-17T02:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/living-the-gospel-the-creative-power-of-mercy\/"},"modified":"2024-05-15T20:43:09","modified_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:43:09","slug":"living-the-gospel-the-creative-power-of-mercy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/living-the-gospel-the-creative-power-of-mercy\/","title":{"rendered":"Living the Gospel: The creative power of mercy"},"content":{"rendered":"

In one of her meditations Chiara Lubich writes “mercy is the ultimate expression of charity, the one that fulfils it<\/em>[1]<\/strong><\/em><\/a>. It is not a feeling, therefore, but a concrete action that, united with an inner intention, pushes us to distance ourselves from ourselves and turn our gaze to the other. A revolutionary movement that heals and generates life.\u201d <\/em> Don’t miss the opportunity<\/strong> At the station, I had just bought a return ticket to a certain city. I rushed to the platform but was disappointed to discover the train had just left. I went back to the ticket office to try and get a refund and further information but the lady in charge told me she couldn\u2019t spend time on me with so many people in the queue. Disgruntled, I walked away feeling really angry but as I was putting my tickets in my diary, a phrase I had written down that morning caught my eye: ‘Don’t miss any opportunities’. I stopped, reflected, then made up my mind: “I must not miss the opportunity to love!”. I walked back to the lady at the ticket office, and when it was my turn I told her I was sorry if I was too demanding with her and that I understood her reaction. The expression on her face and her tone of voice changed and, without persuasion, she started to deal with my situation. She even started looking for alternative routes to enable me to reach my destination in time. It really doesn’t take much to restore harmony in relationships. (R.J. – Romania) The list of enemies<\/strong> As his followers Jesus wants us to love our enemies.\u00a0 He wants us to forgive. For a long time I didn\u2019t think this concerned me. I live a quiet life, have a good position in society and a calm family. We don\u2019t hurt anyone and try to protect ourselves from the negative in society. Nevertheless, that phrase troubled me. Enemies? \u00a0When I really thought about it, I realised I still did have some but had relegated them to a part of my brain where they would not bother me. One by one, situations came to mind in which, rather than face the opposition of an ‘enemy’, I fled. Running away had become a real habit. But Jesus was asking something else of me. So I made a list of all the ‘enemies’ for whom I had to do something: with a phone call, a message or a meeting to let each of them know they were part of my life. It really wasn’t easy – obstacles and reasonings kept holding me back. \u00a0Now that I have overcome myself, I can truly say that Jesus\u2019 commandment has achieved its purpose \u2013 it has made me feel alive. (G.R. – Portugal) <\/p>\n

Edited by Maria Grazia Berretta<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>(taken from Il Vangelo del Giorno, Citt\u00e0 Nuova, year VIII, n.1, January-February 2022)<\/em> [1]<\/a> C. Lubich, \u201cWhen you have known suffering\u201d, in\u00a0 Essential writings<\/em>, Citt\u00e0 Nuova, Rome 2006, pp. 140-141<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In one of her meditations Chiara Lubich writes “mercy is the ultimate expression of charity, the one that fulfils it[1]. It is not a feeling, therefore, but a concrete action that, united with an inner intention, pushes us to distance ourselves from ourselves and turn our gaze to the other. A revolutionary movement that heals and generates life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-308218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-categorizzato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.focolare.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}