TO help us to like him, God pours the special gift of the Holy Spirit into our hearts. This gives us the power to be merciful. If we think of God’s mercy like water, then there are two ways that we can bring it to others.
The first is to try to be like a bucket to catch as much mercy from God as we can and then carry it to others. The only trouble is that we are all flowered and cracked and often the mercy runs out of us like water from a broken bucket before we get a chance to share it with others.
The second option is to be like a hose, to be connected directly to God, the source of all mercy. As a hose is connected to a tap, allowing water to flow through it, so too when the Holy Spirit connects us to God, his mercy flows through us, and we become merciful to others.
So how does the Holy Spirit connect us to God? Through the Sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Reconciliation and the Eucharist. We also connect to God through hearing and meditating on his Word through the scriptures. Simply put, by spending time with him, and getting to know God better we are able to reflect his mercy in the world.
Pope Francis reflects this Spirit-filled mercy in his prayer for the Year of Mercy:
“…send your Spirit and consecrate every one of us with its anointing.
“So that the Jubilee of Mercy may be a year of grace from the Lord, and your Church, with renewed enthusiasm, may bring good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives and the oppressed and restore sight to the blind….. “