What the Christian should be doing at all times should be done now with greater care and devotion, so that the Lenten fast ... may be fulfilled, not simply by abstinence from food but above all by the renunciation of sin.
There is no more profitable practice as a companion to holy and spiritual fasting than that of almsgiving. This embraces under the single name of mercy many excellent works of devotion, so that the good intentions of all the faithful may be of equal value, even where their means are not ... The person who shows love and compassion to those in any kind of affliction is blessed, not only with the virtue of good will but also with the gift of peace.
--St. Leo the Great
More about the Jubilee of Mercy logo
The logo and the motto together
provide a fitting summary of what the Jubilee Year is all about. The motto Merciful Like the Father (taken from the
Gospel of Luke, 6:36) serves as an invitation to follow the merciful example of
the Father who asks us not to judge or condemn but to forgive and to give love
and forgiveness without measure (cf. Lk 6:37-38). The logo – the work of Jesuit
Father Marko I. Rupnik – presents a small summa theologiae of the theme of mercy. In fact, it represents
an image quite important to the early Church: that of the Son having taken upon
his shoulders the lost soul demonstrating that it is the love of Christ that
brings to completion the mystery of his incarnation culminating in redemption.
The logo has been designed in such a way so as to express the profound way in
which the Good Shepherd touches the flesh of humanity and does so with a love
with the power to change one’s life. One particular feature worthy of note is
that while the Good Shepherd, in his great mercy, takes humanity upon himself,
his eyes are merged with those of man. Christ sees with the eyes of Adam, and
Adam with the eyes of Christ. Every person discovers in Christ, the new Adam,
one’s own humanity and the future that lies ahead, contemplating, in his gaze,
the love of the Father.
The scene is captured
within the so called mandorla (the
shape of an almond), a figure quite important in early and medieval
iconography, for it calls to mind the two natures of Christ, divine and human.
The three concentric ovals, with colors progressively lighter as we move
outward, suggest the movement of Christ who carries humanity out of the night
of sin and death. Conversely, the depth of the darker color suggests the
impenetrability of the love of the Father who forgives all.
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