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Mercy Word of the Week

Date:09/12/2016

The Mercy Word of the Week

As we progress through the Jubilee Year of Mercy proclaimed by Pope Francis, University Ministry offers our community a "Mercy Word of the Week" to help us focus on the themes of mercy that are already so closely aligned to our mission and heritage as an institution sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy.

The first Monday of each month will bring a brief reflection on each of the University's Core Values as expressions of our Mercy charism. We hope these focused thoughts will lead to your own considered contemplation on mercy and its role in your life.

Hunger: Back in 1980 Bruce Springsteen scored a major hit with the song, "Hungry Heart." The mantra – like refrain asserts that "Everybody's got a hungry heart!" For me, that line always carried an echo of a much older saying (1,500 years older) spoken by St. Augustine, "Our hearts are restless, O God, until they rest in you." Augustine and Springsteen were making the same point: our hearts are hungry! And both men recognized that only one thing satisfies that hunger –Love, or the other name Love goes by, God.

Hunger is a good thing. In a bodily sense, hunger is that signal that reminds us we need nourishment to keep our bodies strong and healthy. Unsatisfied hunger, of course, is a great tragedy in a world of plenty where there should be enough for everyone.

On the spiritual realm, hunger is also a good thing. Hunger for God is our innate awareness of ultimacy — the recognition that there is something beyond us to which we owe our existence — a something that loves us more than we love ourselves. Recognizing and heeding that hunger is necessary for a strong and healthy spirituality. How tragic that many go spiritually hungry when God constantly is pouring out in abundance all that we need to satisfy a hungry heart.

Graziano Marcheschi, vice president of Mission and Ministry