“Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.” We hear this in our psalm refrain today. We have been reflecting on God’s mercy throughout this year of mercy. Last week, when I was attending the International Catholic Stewardship Conference in New Orleans, one of the presentations I attended was by Auxiliary Bishop Donald Hanchon of Detroit. His presentation was entitled: “From the Year of Mercy to a More Impassioned Discipleship.” One of the lay people I was chatting with at the conference told me what a profound impression that talk had on her. Bishop Hanchon spoke about how he had been the pastor of the largest Hispanic parish in the city of Detroit. He talked about the challenges he faced in leading that parish as its pastor, but he also spoke about the many things he learned from the poor. Perhaps many of us wonder how we can continue to live out God’s mercy in our lives in a more profound way after this Year of Mercy ends in November. He mentioned that perhaps we need to reach out to certain groups in our parish community in our love and mercy. He identified families, young adults, and those on the margins of our Catholic faith are groups that are ripe for outreach. There are some who may feel that our Catholic faith is not particularly relevant to them and their reality, or that our Catholic faith is not really reaching out to them or not really wanting them to be a part of our community. It gives us a lot to think about, especially since we might not understand another perspective that is very different from our own. Let God’s mercy come to us, as the psalmist declares, but let us continue to be instruments of that mercy.
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