God's mercy is for everyone; everyone needs healing, pope writes

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — God is always merciful toward everyone, Pope Francis wrote.

“He heals our wounds so that we can love each other as brothers and sisters,” he said in the text he prepared for the midday Angelus prayer March 30.

While the 88-year-old pope was back at the Vatican and had appeared briefly on the balcony of Rome’s Gemelli hospital March 23, the Sunday he was discharged, to offer his blessing, he was following doctors’ orders to rest and did not make a televised or public appearance.

The pope’s message focused on the day’s Gospel reading, the parables of the lost sheep and the lost son from Luke 15:1-3, 11-32. The Pharisees are scandalized instead of happy that sinners are being welcomed by Jesus, so Jesus tells them the parable of the son who squandered his inheritance and repented and was still loved and welcomed by his father.

“This is how Jesus reveals the heart of God: He is always merciful toward all,” the pope wrote.

“Let us live this Lent as a time of healing, all the more as it is the Jubilee,” he wrote, saying he, too, was experiencing this period as a time of healing “in my soul and in my body.”

“That is why I give heartfelt thanks to all those who, in the image of the Savior, are instruments of healing for their neighbor with their word and their knowledge, with kindness and with prayer,” he wrote. “Frailty and illness are experiences we all have in common; all the more, however, we are brothers in the salvation Christ has given us.”

Like the other messages he released on Sundays, the pope also called for prayers for peace, including in Myanmar, “which is also suffering so much because of the earthquake,” and he made two urgent appeals.

Concerning the increasing instability in the wake of the collapse of the government of national unity in South Sudan, the pope renewed a “heartfelt appeal to all leaders to do their utmost to lower the tension in the country.”

“We must put aside our differences and, with courage and responsibility, sit around a table and engage in constructive dialogue. Only in this way will it be possible to alleviate the suffering of the beloved South Sudanese people and to build a future of peace and stability,” his message said.

Also in Sudan, “the war continues to claim innocent victims,” he said, urging the international community to “increase its efforts to address the appalling humanitarian catastrophe.”

“I urge the parties concerned in the conflict to put the safeguarding of the lives of their civilian brothers and sisters first; and I hope that new negotiations will begin as soon as possible, capable of securing a lasting solution to the crisis,” the pope wrote.

The pope also praised “positive events” taking place in the world, for example, “the ratification of the agreement on the demarcation of the border between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, which is an excellent diplomatic achievement. I encourage both countries to continue on this path.”