Gestures that Speak...

Back Seat: Pope Francis with Argentinians in the chapel of Casa Santa Marta

The Italian media are speaking of “a revolution of small gestures,” of the "Bergoglio-style" that is refreshing the Church. Reported anecdotes abound of Francis' symbolic first actions.

Instead of adorning himself with an ornate gold cross as Popes traditionally do, he wears a simple cross around his neck. He pointedly refuses to sit on a throne after his election and met his fellow cardinals standing, on equal footing. Since then he has also refused a "throne" - meeting with other religious leaders he sat on a chair similar to theirs, and one not placed on a raised dais.

The night he was elected, according to New York's Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Vatican officials and staffers came forward to meet the new Pope. He politely put them off: “Not now, the people are waiting.” Then he went to the balcony. When he appeared before the world, he was plainly dressed, a simple white cassock, no regalia, no finery. He began with the simple “bona sera” and ended by wishing us all a “good night, have a good rest”, as if talking to family members.

Looking at his non-verbals, which experts believe are much more truthful than language, he comes across as someone with simplicity, a prayerful man of faith and warmth, like one who comes “to serve and not to be served." This has since been confirmed by his subsequent meetings with different groups and his heart-felt, often unscripted, talks and homilies that reveal a deeply pastoral heart. It has also been confirmed by what we have learned about his choices and lifestyle as Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires. All this conveys a person of substance and yet one with a light touch.

The fact that almost every account of him uses the word "humility" or "humble" to describe him, is indicative of how we pick up people's actual “energy” much more than their words or actions. People are drawn to accessibility, to loving presence. A priest say: “I would go to him for confession!”

There is no doubt the Benedict, Pope Emeritus, is a man of great holiness and humility. However gestures can carry great power. And the right gestures can be bearers of transforming grace.

So Pope Francis, with the simplicity and wisdom worthy of his namesake, is letting his gestures speak a "word" that is capturing the attention of Church and world.

A Call to Tenderness

Pope Francis kisses man with severe disabilities.

Before the Mass in St Peter's Square at which he formally inaugurated his Petrine ministry, Pope Francis greeted the people in the square. At one point he asked for the Popemobile to stop. He had seen a disabled man being supported by his friends. The Pope got out of the vehicle, went over, kissed him gently and blessed him.

This simple, tender gesture was a lived parable of the words he was to address to the Church and the world a short time later.

In a homily fragrant with the Franciscan spirit, Francis called us to be protectors of creation, of each other, and especially of the weak and poor.

"It means protecting all creation, the beauty of the created world, as the Book of Genesis tells us and as Saint Francis of Assisi showed us... It means protecting people, showing loving concern for each and every person, especially children, the elderly, those in need, who are often the last we think about. It means caring for one another in our families: husbands and wives first protect one another, and then, as parents, they care for their children, and children themselves, in time, protect their parents."

"In the end, everything has been entrusted to our protection, and all of us are responsible for it. Be protectors of God’s gifts!"

But this must be done in love - "Only those who serve with love are able to protect!"

Indeed, not only with love, but tenderness. “Caring, protecting, demands goodness, it calls for a certain tenderness.We must not be afraid of goodness or even tenderness.”

Pope Francis sees himself called to model this Christ-like tenderness before the world. “He [the Pope] must open his arms to protect all of God’s people and embrace with tender affection the whole of humanity, especially the poorest, the weakest, the least important.”

May the Lord be blessed for Pope Francis, this humble servant who invites us to live the Gospel in loving tenderness.

Position Vacant: Awaiting the Conclave

Ronald Knox mused: “Perhaps it would be a good thing if every Christian, certainly if every priest,could dream once in his life that he were Pope, and wake from that nightmare in a sweat of agony.” As I write the Church and indeed a fascinated if puzzled world await the conclave and the election of the man who, as next Bishop of Rome, will carry an onerous burden of expectations and problems.

The Petrine ministry holds a unique place in Catholic theology and imagination. Indeed our Order has from the beginning emphasised our link with the “Roman Church” and the Successor of Peter. In the very first lines of our Rule Francis, on our behalf, promises obedience to the Pope.

However the Pope is not the Church nor is he above the Church – even if one might get that impression from some of the recent media comment. He exercises his ministry as a member of God’s people, among God’s people and for the sake of God’s people.

It is very interesting to notice that in Francis’ writings different visions of Church are present. When speaking of the friars relations with the hierarchy Francis uses the accepted language. So we hear of the “Lord Pope,” the cardinal who is to be “governor, protector, and corrector,” of the Order and that the friars are to be “always submissive and prostrate at the feet” of the Church. But in their relations within the fraternity and with the people the friars are to model a different type of Christian community. In this context definite Gospel terms and images are used: brothers, minores, ministers and servants, a mutual love greater than that of a mother, the washing of feet.

We frequently experience tension as we try to hold in balance these different realities of Church. The late Franciscan Cardinal Lorscheiter of Brazil said religious, and friars in particular, should expect this tension and consider it healthy. “The charism of religious is to be agents of renewal and creativity, the pioneers in discovering the pastoral and missionary needs of the Church. This is your gift, and you must not wait for the hierarchy to call you. The hierarchy has its own charism of coordination. Because of your charism will often be uncomfortable. However the Church will get alone well in the measure that you live this missionary charism.”  

In his moving final audience Pope Benedict stressed “the Church is not mine, not ours, but His” and “the Gospel’s word of truth is the strength and life of the Church.” Here he echoes the dying Francis who told us: “The Gospel must come before every other rule or precept.”

Whoever the new Pope will be (God bless him!) the friars will still need to hold in harmony two key elements of our Franciscan vocation: “obedience and reverence” for the Pope and the courageous living of our Gospel calling.

A Last Word from the Pope!

On Shrove Tuesday the community here came together to reflect on the Pope’s Lenten Message. Little did we realise when we decided on this topic some weeks ago that we would be gathering a day after the Pope’s shock announcement of his resignation. So in our reflections the friars viewed the text as one of Pope Benedict’s last messages, one of his final words to us. Seen in that light we read the text even more closely!

For a man who has been portrayed so often as severe in his understanding of the Christian faith the message is wonderfully positive and attractive - “affirmative orthodoxy” at its best, emphasising  what our Christian belief says yes to and rejoices in. Even though it is a “word” for the Lenten journey there is no mention of sin or evil. These realities are not denied, but our eyes are turned toward the light of God’s love, not to the darkness.

Recently I heard a priest share who had given some time to read the Pope’s writings and talks. Like so many he has a jaundiced view of the Pope so he was very surprised to discover just how positive and attractive his teachings were, and that joy (in the Lord, in believing, in the experience of grace, in service) was such a constant theme throughout.

In his final Lenten Message, Pope Benedict writes of how faith leads to love in action. But the origin of faith is the response “to the revelation of God’s gratuitous and ‘passionate’ love for us, fully revealed in Jesus Christ.” The Church is hopefully being formed by “people who have been conquered by Christ’s love and accordingly, under the influence of that love” serve their brothers and sisters. The time of Lent is meant to renew “the first and indispensable contact with the Divine” that makes us “fall in love with Love.” As we enter more and more into this dynamic of Love, “we grow in it and we joyfully communicate it to others.”

This message, one of Pope Benedict’s last to us, is well worth reading!

Reading that Nourishes Faith

I have finished reading The Duty of Delight, an abridged version of the diaries of Dorothy Day (1897-1980), the founder the Catholic Worker and Houses of Hospitality. Her diaries span her entire adult life and they reveal the story of her spiritual path. Reading them I was struck by how serious she took her own “faith formation”. There are frequent references to reading on her faith and how it sustained her. As a young woman struggling with poverty, she realising “with intense joy, I will always have the torrents of pleasure promised by the psalms, the joy that come from reading, from study, from association with noble minds.”

Amid all the difficulties and loneliness she experienced in her pioneering work among the poor, she writes: “I do plenty of spiritual reading to refresh myself and to encourage myself. Reading is the oil that keeps the lamp burning.” Her reflection on the psalms was a constant blessing: “There is never a time when it is not balm to me for an aching heart.” Towards the end of her life: “Even with all the symptoms of old age and decrepitude my heart can still leap for joy as I read and assent to some truth of the faith enunciated by some great mind or heart.”

But none of this was dry intellectualism – she wanted to live the truth that enlightened her. “The difference between a dead-weight knowledge and a living rich experience can never be enough expressed. I must keep praying that great thoughts will click and pass into life!” As her faith grew stronger, so too did her confidence in God’s love: “Humanity went astray, but Jesus Christ was born and we are richer by that Fall. What a great mystery. The worst has already happened and has been repaired.”

Her desire to grow deeper in living faith meant that she listened to sermons with eagerness – not a very common attitude! “St Teresa said she so loved to hear the Word of God preached that she would listen with enjoyment to the poorest preacher. I know what she meant.” Dorothy writes of a parish mission she was attending in New York in 1939: “It is an exceptionally good mission and my heart is filled with gratitude that God has so blessed us this Lent.” The Jesuit priest preached “in a popular fashion yet dealing with profound ideas”.

We are called to love God “with our whole mind”. Countless times I have experienced that solid reading and Spirit-filled preaching have provided nourishment for my faith and a new energy for the Lord and His service.

New Year - New Beginning

St Francis used to tell his friars, ‘Let us begin again for up to now we have done little or nothing.’

He had the capacity to leave the past to God’s compassion and to look forward with hope, trusting in grace from the Lord.

Stepping out again in confidence, being willing to begin again, setting goals for the path ahead – this is what renews our energy and gives zest to life!

‘Make New Year's goals. Dig within, and discover what you would like to have happen in your life this year. This helps you do your part. It is an affirmation that you're interested in fully living life in the year to come.
Goals give us direction. They put a powerful force into play on a universal, conscious, and subconscious level. Goals give our life direction.

What would you like to have happen in your life this year? What would you like to do, to accomplish? What good would you like to attract into your life? What particular areas of growth would you like to have happen to you? What blocks, or character defects, would you like to have removed?

What would you like to attain? Little things and big things? Where would you like to go? What would you like to have happen in friendship and love? What would you like to have happen in your family life?

What problems would you like to see solved? What decisions would you like to make? What would you like to happen in your career?

Write it down. Take a piece of paper, a few hours of your time, and write it all down - as an affirmation of you, your life, and your ability to choose. Then let it go. 

The New Year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals.’

Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go

Christmas: 'And is it true?'

Writing of London in the days before Christmas, John Betjeman's poem Christmas captures the rush and fuss that precedes the celebration. 

But then he asks the core question: Is it true? 

Is it true?

In this Year of Faith that question goes to the heart of our believing.

Is it true that God has come so close to us? Is it true that he now shares our humanity so we can share his divinity? Is it true that foolish love has led God to such astonishing means to reach us?

Is it true?

Wishing you light and joy unbounded as you ponder that question during these days of grace!

Christmas

The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green...

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children's hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say 'Come!'
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

John Betjeman (1906-84)