March 19, 2013
March 19, 2013
Sisters who have been in town for appointments or shopping tell us that people they have never met stop them to ask what they think about the new pope. It seems kind of sad that we should be so happy about a man who is simple, loving, and gifted with a touch for the other. Very sad, because shouldn’t every pope be that? Shouldn’t we all be that? I realize that personalities get in the way and can’t be helped. We are just blessed that the cardinals shuffled through their choices and picked a man who isn’t young and doesn’t have two lungs–but who has an enormous capacity for embodying the reason for the Church—“Little Children, love one another.” Yes, he’s a Jesuit, but he also has passed beyond any inclusive identity and become a universal father.
Truly, those whose hearts have been weighted with despair and disillusion can take hope. It has seemed that hope is dead, and the Spirit of Christ has been sleeping until now. Not that we haven’t a galaxy of thoughtful and kindly people spending themselves for others. But somehow, when the finger of God touches a pope, we want to cry with relief in spite of all the things we wish could be different.
Wasn’t it beautiful that the prelates of the Eastern Church were taking part in the Inaugural ceremonies? I have always thought of the Eastern and Western Churches as lungs of the same body. Why should we denigrate each other? How could we have hated each other? The Church originated in the East, after all, and what a treasure of theology and mysticism the East has given to the world.
He did not depart from his script during the homily this time. Maybe he figured it was too solemn an occasion. The choreography, so to speak, went off without a hitch in its environment of Renaissance splendor. But it was the ordinary life of ordinary people he was talking about. And the ordinary splendor of kindness and simplicity and care for creation that he was setting in our hearts.
I read the most sensible description of his relationship with the terrible Argentine government—by Thomas Reese in NCR. Try it, or if you can’t reach it, let me know and I will direct you.
How does one say thank you for this great gift? For a man who is not perfect, but who tries, and who would understand that we are not perfect but that we try. Who would understand.
Maybe by keeping on trying, by letting go of the disappointment and despair, and by not being afraid of goodness, of tenderness.
I think everyone is impressed by the second-hand, plated ring. A bishop’s ring is a symbol of his “marriage” to his diocese. So he needs one, but he has turned it into a symbol of material restraint as well. And here we are, all of us, believers and unbelievers, caught up in the relationship that is Church. The Church has its terribly dark aspect, as well as it sacramental gifts of grace. But so do we. We hurt each other, we neglect and walk on each other. We want what hurts our brothers and sisters.
“Being protectors also means keeping watch over our emotions, over our hearts, because they are the seat of good and evil intentions that build up and tear down.”
Let us acknowledge the dark and twisted roots of our behavior and open them to the healing offered by a God this man of compassion so poignantly mirrors. Let us acknowledge that gracious capacities we have been given by gracious God, and let them blossom in compassion and goodness.