The logo and the motto together provide a fitting summary of what the Jubilee Year is all about.
The motto Merciful Like the Father (taken from the Gospel of Luke, 6:36) serves as an invitation
to follow the merciful example of the Father who asks us not to judge or condemn but to forgive
and to give love and forgiveness without measure (c...
The logo and the motto together provide a fitting summary of what the Jubilee Year is all about.
The motto Merciful Like the Father (taken from the Gospel of Luke, 6:36) serves as an invitation
to follow the merciful example of the Father who asks us not to judge or condemn but to forgive
and to give love and forgiveness without measure (cfr. Lk 6:37-38). The logo – the work of Jesuit
Father Marko I. Rupnik – presents a small summa theologiae of the theme of mercy. In fact, it
represents an image quite important to the early Church: that of the Son having taken upon his
shoulders the lost soul demonstrating that it is the love of Christ that brings to completion the
mystery of his incarnation culminating in redemption. The logo has been designed in such a way
so as to express the profound way in which the Good Shepherd touches the flesh of humanity and
does so with a love with the power to change one’s life. One particular feature worthy of note is
that while the Good Shepherd, in his great mercy, takes humanity upon himself, his eyes are
merged with those of man. Christ sees with the eyes of Adam, and Adam with the eyes of Christ.
Every person discovers in Christ, the new Adam, one’s own humanity and the future that lies
ahead, contemplating, in his gaze, the love of the Father.
The scene is captured within the so called mandorla (the shape of an almond), a figure quite
important in early and medieval iconography, for it calls to mind the two natures of Christ, divine
and human. The three concentric ovals, with colors progressively lighter as we move outward,
suggest the movement of Christ who carries humanity out of the night of sin and death.
Conversely, the depth of the darker color suggests the impenetrability of the love of the Father
who forgives all.
