Crossing to the Other Shore
Stories of desire, sorrow, and forgiveness at the beginning of the Year of Mercy with Priscilla LA PORTE, sister of Cadet Matthew La Porte, recipient of the Airman Medal for his heroic actions during the April 16, 2007 Virginia Tech shooting; Joshua STANCIL, former inmate; and Fr. Peter John CAMERON, OP. (moderator), Editor-in-chief of Magnificat.
“We need constantly to contemplate the mystery of mercy. It is a wellspring of joy, serenity, and peace. Our salvation depends on it. Mercy: the word reveals the very mystery of the Most Holy Trinity. Mercy: the ultimate and supreme act by which God comes to meet us. Mercy: the fundamental law that dwells in the heart of every person who looks sincerely into the eyes of his brothers and sisters on the path of life. Mercy: the bridge that connects God and man, opening our hearts to a hope of being loved forever despite our sinfulness.”
— Pope Francis, “Misericordiae Vultus”, Bull of indiction of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy
“This is the ultimate embrace of the Mystery, against which man–even the most distant, the most perverse or the most obscured, the most in the dark–cannot oppose anything, can make no objection. He can abandon it, but in so doing he abandons himself and his own good. The Mystery as mercy remains the last word even on all the awful possibilities of history. For this reason existence expresses itself, as ultimate ideal, in begging. The real protagonist of history is the beggar: Christ who begs for man’s heart, and man’s heart that begs for Christ.”
— Msgr. Luigi Giussani, Testimony during the meeting of Pope John Paul II with the ecclesial movements, May 30, 1998
The speakers will share their stories of mercy and their experience of a loving Presence who was not afraid to cross the sea and reach the shores of their hearts.
