THE CHURCH AS A SYMBOL OF MERCY: THE HEARTH-HOLD METAPHOR

Bartholomew Chidili

Abstract


This essay is essentially based on boundless mercy of God as it affects human persons. By adopting the African image of hearth-hold, the church poses to spread her limitless mercy to every human person but particularly to targeted downtrodden persons. The church is effecting this mercy through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The essay is particularly choosing almsgiving as the virtue that portrays proper conduit through which the intended mercy reaches the consumer. In the process it will be discovered that this particular works of mercy demand more than a humanitarian basis to articulate possible instruments in bringing about our eternal salvation. That is why the church in this essay insists that an indispensable motive drawn from supernatural order is crucial to authenticate the validity of our works of mercy. Hence, the work asserts that the Church's love for the poor is inspired by the Gospel of the Beatitudes, by the poverty of Jesus and by his attention to the poor. Since this love concerns material poverty as well as the numerous forms of cultural and religious poverty, the church does whatever it takes at this moment in time to reach the desired audience. This is why, since her origin and in spite of the failing of many of her members, the Church continues the said various works for the relief, defence and liberation of human persons through almsgiving. It is against this backdrop that this essay articulates the mercy of God in this special year of Mercy.

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Acts 1:12-14 5Ekejiuba, 1995, pp.47-57 6Oduyoye, 2001, p. 79 7Oduyoye, 2001, p. 80 8Bronstein, P. et al. (1993, July). Family Relations. National Council on Family Relations. Vol. 42, p. 66. As cited in Catholic Family and the Slothful Attitude towards the Sacraments. In The Catholic Voyage,2016, vol. 12, pp.13-30

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