Speaking before the Marian Prayer in St Peter’s Square, Pope Francis recalled Sunday’s Gospel from Luke, considered to be the chapter of Mercy. In these parables of the lost sheep, the coin, and the prodigal son the Pope explained that “Jesus wants to make us understand that God the Father is the first to have a welcoming and merciful attitude toward sinners.”The Pope added that all these parables express joy and rejoicing, not sadness and sorrow. Pope Francis underlined the Gospel reading gives hope, continuing, “there is no sin in which we have fallen, from which, by the grace of God, we cannot rise again; there is no individual beyond redemption, no one is beyond redemption, because God never ceases to want our good, even when we sin”
