Holy Cross Professor Publishes a Book to Celebrate the Holy Year of Mercy

Read Time

4 Minutes



Mathew Schmalz, associate professor of religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross, recently published a book titled “Mercy Matters: Opening Yourself to the Life-Changing Gift.” The book, which was published in May 2016 by Our Sunday Visitor, is a collection of short reflections by Schmalz that centers around instances of mercy he has experienced in both his personal and professional life.

Schmalz, an expert on the papacy, describes “Mercy Matters” as a response to the Jubilee of Mercy, otherwise called Holy Year of Mercy, which was initiated by Pope Francis to occur from December 8, 2015 to November 20, 2016. According to Schmalz, “a jubilee year is a special year called by the Church to receive blessing and pardon from God and remission of sins.”

Pope Francis has inaugurated the Jubilee Year of Mercy to encourage us to reflect upon how people experience and express God’s merciful love, Schmalz explains. “Part of the point of the book is extending our understanding of mercy,” Schmalz said in a recent interview. “I’m trying to connect mercy to other things, like kindness, compassion and forgiveness as a way of expanding our understanding of mercy, and how it can impact our lives and relationships with one another.”

In “Mercy Matters,” Schmalz shares the experiences and expressions of mercy from his life, including his role as a professor at Holy Cross. Two chapters in the book feature some of Schmalz’s students from the College. For example, the sixth chapter, “Mercy and Dignity,” sheds light on Schmalz’s experience with six students during a Maymester trip to India, where the group visits a hospital and witnesses a pair of nurses tending to a man suffering from leprosy. In another example, the ninth chapter, “Mercy and Forgiveness,” focuses on a class discussion Schmalz and students in his “Religion and Violence” class had on the Boston Marathon bombings, and how this event tied into the fundamental issues they studied in the course. Both chapters highlight how Schmalz and his students witness, discuss and act with mercy towards others while teaching and learning at Holy Cross.

“It was an intense process over six months—a lot of early morning and late night writing, and lots of coffee,” Schmalz says. “I relied on the editorial mentorship of Bill Roorbach, who I first worked with when he held the Jenks Chair here at Holy Cross. I was also able to draw upon writing I had done for the Boston Globe’s website ‘Crux’ and the Washington Post’s ‘On Faith’ and weave those pieces into a fuller discussion of mercy and its impact on our lives.”

Schmalz says the stories in the book reflect honesty about his own views of mercy, and are also open-ended to frame discussion for those who read it. “Readers should feel free to disagree with how I have interpreted the issues that I have shared and put forward. “Mercy Matters” is not a textbook that defines what mercy is or should be,” Schmalz says. “Instead, it is an invitation to reflect and discern the many ways God’s mercy can be made manifest for all of us.”

Schmalz’s teaching and scholarship focus on Roman Catholicism and modern religious movements. His work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including: The History of Religions, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, Religion, The Religious Studies Review, and America’s Best Spiritual Writing. He also is co-editor of "Engaging South Asian Religions: Boundaries, Appropriations, and Resistances" (SUNY Press, 2010), and is the founding editor of The Journal of Global Catholicism.

He has published opinion pieces in The Washington Post, Commonweal Magazine, National Catholic Reporter, and the Huffington Post, and has provided expert commentary to USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC's Good Morning America, The Boston Globe, NPR, CNBC, MSNBC, and U.S. News & World Report, among others.

Select media coverage:



More Stories

View All Stories