St. Alphonsus Liguori founded the Redemptorist Order in 1732, beginning in a little village in Italy called Scala. This village was situated in the hill country east of Naples where the people scrapped out a living on a few acres of land on the hillsides. Alphonsus had encountered these people when he had worn himself out with his ministry in Naples and had traveled to the mountains to rest and recuperate.  There he was astonished at the lack of religious education and the guidance that they did not seem to get.  He had mercy on them and he devoted his life and his Order to bringing God’s love and healing to these children of God whom society seemed to have forgotten.  

The primary method that St. Alphonsus used to teach the people was the parish mission, through which the basic truths of the Christian faith were preached.  But Alphonsus was interested in more than head knowledge; he wanted to mould the hearts of his people to love God and in doing so to love one another. So faith instruction included a strong life of prayer and regular devotions, in other words, a daily relationship with God.

A significant part of St. Alphonsus’ parish missions was the call to repentance and confession. One can imagine the fiery sermons against sin and the destruction caused by sin. But two things stand out for me in the life of St. Alphonsus which are often overlooked if one focuses primarily on the call to repentance.

First, St. Alphonsus never left his people in shame and misery over their sins.  He preached the infinite merciful love of Our God.  And he used every means—preaching, song, music, devotions, writing—to make sure that every human being understood the infinite reach of God’s merciful forgiveness.  His sermons and writings are full of images of the tenderness of God’s love and how mercy is the beginning of that love because it frees us from what would destroy us. 

Then the second thing that struck me in reading his life was his attitude towards the confessional. For Alphonsus, the confessional was not a dark place of shame where sinners had to cringe before God’s justice. The confessional was where God’s mercy was to be spoken personally and individually to all who came.  This great sacrament was for him a place of healing, a place of hope, a place of renewal and restoration, a place of light. Through the power of God’s Holy Spirit, the mercy of God was to shine through this sacrament. And that is why St. Alphonsus said to his Redemptorist preachers, “You are to be lions in the pulpit, but lambs in the confessional.”

And that is why, to make a modern connection, Pope Francis speaks of the Joy of the Gospel while proclaiming that the name of God is Mercy! St. Alphonsus and Pope Francis both have experienced that God, who many think acts like a distant, uncaring judge. They’ve experienced he is in fact a tender, loving Father with arms open wide to make us safe and to assure us that Mercy will triumph over all human failure. Jesus is the Father’s guarantee of this promise, which is what it means for him to die for our sins. Our God wants to be close to us, our God wants to free us from those sins that bind us up, keeping us from being sons and daughters, the ones God wants us to be. Mercy is the door that enables us to see with the eyes of faith this God who never forces himself upon us but who is always seeking us out, whispering in our hearts, calling us tenderly to fullness of life in Jesus, and teaching us that we, too, can be merciful like Our Father in Heaven. 

So to return briefly to the sacrament of reconciliation, we need to remind ourselves that that this is not the only place where God’s forgiveness is found. It is the repentant heart that God accepts in all circumstances. But the sacrament is a special encounter with the living God, through the Spirit, to hear the human words of forgiveness, mercy. And, as a priest, I cannot tell you how many times I have heard the tremendous relief of a penitent who has heard the words of forgiveness and mercy and knows and feels the healing presence of God. St. Alphonsus understood this in the depth of his being: the Name of God is Mercy!