Review article
Mercy in the Teaching of John Paul II – The Pope of the Mercy
Emanuel Petrov
orcid.org/0000-0002-0224-7803
; University of Split, Catholic Faculty of Theology
Abstract
According to the teachings of Pope John Paul II, God’s mercy is the manifestation of God’s love for humanity in the historical and eschatological reality of man. In this, historical reality involves the situation of the fallen man, marked by sin and death, but also the manifestation of Father’s infinite, merciful love in the man Jesus of Nazareth. Love manifested in such a way radically changes the history of sin into history of salvation. Eschatological reality is the truth that has already been living “now” in the time of the Church, but also presupposes the “not yet” accomplished final realization of human likeness to God (likeness to Christ) in the heritage of mercy
– eternal contemplation of God face to face. The entire pontificate of Pope John Paul II was permeated by these issues. What is especially important to him is the point where God’s love and mankind come across, which happens in the truth about dignity of man as the image of God, whose origin announces Christ’s incarnation and His redeeming sacrifice the final eschatological celebration. In this regard, for John Paul II, God’s mercy, whose face is the face of Jesus Christ, is a bridge of God’s love between the origin and eternity.
Keywords
mercy; freedom; person; dignity; love; John Paul II; primeval man; historical man; eschatological man; God’s image; human body
Hrčak ID:
178969
URI
Publication date:
30.3.2017.
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