When he announced this
Jubilee Year of Mercy, Pope Francis highlighted today’s Gospel episode, in which Jesus proclaims in his hometown synagogue his Spirit-anointed mission to fulfill the promises of the prophet Isaiah. Jesus’ mission then, says Pope Francis, is our mission now as Jesus’ disciples this
Jubilee Year of Mercy: to bring glad tidings to the poor, liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord, a year of God’s mercy. Pope Francis challenges us to translate Jesus’ mission to contemporary needs: to console by word and deed those materially or spiritually poor, to liberate those bound by modern society’s new forms of slavery, to open the eyes of those blinded by their own self-interest, and to restore human dignity to all those from whom it has been stolen. To act with mercy in a spirit of joy!