By Amy White
The Texas Catholic
Father Rudy Garcia is set to unite with hundreds of priests in Rome for the Jubilee of Priests Instituted as “Missionaries of Mercy” on March 28-30. Surrounded by clergy from around the globe, Father Garcia will serve as the sole representative of the Diocese of Dallas: its only Missionary of Mercy.
Currently the pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Frisco, Father Garcia received the call to be a Missionary of Mercy a decade ago, while he was still serving as rector of the National Shrine Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe, then the Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Pope Francis had established an extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy beginning that year, 2015; and in the papal bull “Misericordiae Vultus,” the pontiff had announced that he would commission select priests to be Missionaries of Mercy: living signs of the pardon and forgiveness that God the Father desires to extend to all people through the Church.
Father Garcia remembered receiving a letter that year listing him as one of the priests chosen to be, in a special way, a representative of the Lord’s mercy.
“It was not something that I sought out,” he said. “It was just something that I was invited into through this letter.”
On Ash Wednesday 2016, Father Garcia gathered with selected priests from around the world in Rome, where he was commissioned to carry out the duties of a Missionary of Mercy.
Made new
Father Garcia shared that Missionaries of Mercy are tasked to be instruments of God’s mercy in a few specific ways.
“One is preaching mercy,” he said. “You preach about the mercy of God and how God is close to us, how He has a tender heart, how He is there to pardon, to forgive.”
The second way is by offering the faithful ample access to the sacrament of reconciliation. In pursuit of that aim, Father Garcia has extended the time that confession is held at his parish of St. Francis of Assisi. He offers two hours of confession four days a week; and he finds that the people of the community take advantage of the sacrament’s availability; the hours are full of penitents seeking mercy.
“It’s like one after another,” the priest said. “It’s amazing. But I’m lucky too that I have my brother priests here at St. Francis that have helped with this.”
Father Garcia said that dedicating so much time to confession every week has its difficulties. Each time he walks into the confessional, he is unsure what situations he will encounter from one penitent to the next; sometimes they come to him carrying heavy burdens, suffering, and shame, and the priest must do his best to enter into their experience and extend mercy.
But, through the grace of God, many shed their burdens in the confessional and walk away “elated, joyful, with a renewed sense of purpose in life,” Father Garcia said. Witnessing that transformation is his favorite part of his ministry.
“It’s kind of like St. Paul’s saying, ‘We are new creations in Christ,’” he shared. “Anytime we come into contact with the mercy of God, we are made new. We are renewed interiorly, and you can see it on a person’s face.”
As a Missionary of Mercy, Father Garcia shared that he also is granted by the Church the power to remit Church sanctions like excommunication or suspension, which are the result of sins including desecration of the Holy Eucharist or the violation of the seal of confession by a priest.
Contemplating this unique permission, Father Garcia suggested that his special permission to pardon these serious sins is not the reason that penitents pursue a confession with him; rather, they desire him as their confessor simply because he has been designated in a special way by the Church to be an instrument of God’s forgiveness and love.
A living sign
Aside from the specific duties of the Missionaries of Mercy, Father Garcia said there is also a call to show mercy simply through the way they live their daily lives.
“You’re mindful that your own semblance — your own face if you will — shows the Father’s mercy,” he said. “That means that I need to be approachable; I need to be as warm as I can.”
Kristie Gates, liturgy director at St. Francis of Assisi, said that one way Father Garcia shows the Father’s mercy in his daily life is through his loving attention. When he is in a conversation with someone, he gives them his full focus, she shared.
“He’s very caring about everybody,” Gates said. “I think that’s mercy, because we all come with our issues and damage, and he wants to help every person that he can.”
Alec Banda, the St. Francis youth and faith formation director, said Father Garcia extends mercy in a special way to members of the parish who are mourning.
“When he has a funeral — and he has multiple in a week at some points,” Banda said, “he ministers to the family there, but he meets with the family in person (beforehand) as well, which not every priest does… It’s a gift. I don’t know how he does that.”
While Father Garcia seeks to embody the Father’s mercy to his community, he remains deeply aware of the many ways his community also extends mercy to him.
“I am certainly the recipient of people’s mercy all the time. I’m very human, and I forget things,” he said. “They’re merciful towards me.”
Mission of mercy
Anticipating the Jubilee event for Missionaries of Mercy at the end of March, Father Garcia expressed uncertainty about whether Pope Francis will be able to join the missionaries due to the pontiff’s recent health challenges; nonetheless, he is thrilled to have the opportunity to gather with his brother priests, each dedicated to showing God’s mercy to the world.
“It’s exciting to be in the presence of the Missionaries of Mercy and to see how their ministries are carried out in very different circumstances throughout all the world,” he said. “There’s a certain excitement; there’s a certain amount of learning from each other.”
Father Garcia also noted that all people, not just those priests that will gather for the Jubilee event, are called in some way to live out the mission of mercy.
“I think the pope, by designating Missionaries of Mercy, is calling on everybody to be merciful and to carry themselves in a way that extends mercy in the world,” he said, “to really be merciful rather than judgmental, be warm rather than being cold and indifferent.”
Cutline for featured image: Father Rudy Garcia, pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Frisco, will unite with hundreds of priests in Rome for the Jubilee of Priests Instituted as “Missionaries of Mercy” on March 28-30. (AMY WHITE/The Texas Catholic)
