...That in a presentation to the Clergy of the Diocese of Tucson, Cardinal Joseph Tobin, said that if you want to understand Pope Francis’ ‘agenda for ministry’, it can be summed up in three “M’s”: MERCY, MISSION, MARGINS?

We don’t have a “Parish Mission Statement” per se, but it would be difficult to come up with a better or more basic statement for our Parish’s ‘agenda for ministry’ than that of Pope Francis! We really begin, as everything does in our Catholic Faith, with the Mercy of God! The Mercy of God is not an abstract concept or an ideal of what Mercy could be, but the Mercy of God is actually incarnate (enfleshed) in the God/Man JESUS Christ. Everything that our Lord says and everything that He does demonstrates what this Mercy is all about, and it is infinite! This Mercy is really the heart of the Good News that we are each called to incarnate in our own daily lives. “Be merciful, as your Father in heaven is merciful.” (LUKE 6:36) We are never to keep this Mercy to ourselves, but we are always ‘sent’ by the Holy Spirit to live this Mercy in Mission (the meaning of the Latin word ‘missio’ is “sent”)! Recall Pope Benedict XVI’s words: “The Church doesn’t have a mission; the Church is Mission, or it’s not the Church of JESUS Christ!” At the conclusion of the Mass the Deacon (or Priest) proclaims this ‘sending’: “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord!” And so we take the Mercy which we ourselves have received into a world desperate for mercy! We become ministers/agents of that Mercy in Mission. The Church (all of us!) are being sent! Where? How far? To whom? To the Margins! To the littlest, the least, the most easily overlooked or forgotten, to whoever is ‘marginalized’ in our society and our neighborhoods! St. Vincent de Paul Food Bank, Good Neighbor Alliance, Forgach House, the County Jail, the Hospital and Nursing Homes, to name but a few! AND, stretching beyond the immediate neighborhood of our own Parish, we look to the world – Nigeria, Haiti, Ecuador, Mexico, Nepal, Kyrgyzstan, to name but a few places beyond the margins of our own immediate community! All of our Parish activities, ministries, and priorities should be shaped and informed by the “three M’s” and, of course, what is true of the Parish Community should be true of the ‘domestic Church’: our own homes and families!

FOOD for thought: There is a lot of arrogant criticism of Arizona’s ‘antiquated’ anti-abortion law of 1864. Consider that there is another law that dates back to the same decade. It is the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, and it dates to 1868. It states that you cannot treat another human being as someone’s personal property: the immorality of slavery was declared illegal. The same principle applies in both laws: you cannot treat a human being as disposable personal property. You can’t ‘own’ another person as a possession. The immorality of abortion should also be illegal.