Today, the Cardinals go into Conclave, locked together in the Sistine Chapel, until they elect the next Pope, the successor of St Peter. It is a serious business, since so much hangs on who that man will be. In our church, as in many, many churches throughout the Catholic world, Masses have been offered Pro eligendo Summo Pontifice, with accompanying prayers from the faithful, that the Cardinals will choose the right man. There have been Masses offered in honour of the Holy Spirit, since it is understood that he has an important part to play in the process. But what is his role? It is easy to imagine that the Holy Spirit is solely responsible for the choice, but that might not account for the bad popes who have governed the Church from time to time.

Pope Francis, who revealed that Cardinal Ratzinger had been his candidate in 2005, was asked what he thought the Holy Spirit was saying to the Catholic Church through the election of Pope Benedict. He said that the Spirit was saying, “Here I am in charge. There is no room for manoeuvre.” Back in 1997, when Ratzinger was asked whether the Spirit was responsible for the choice of the new pope, he chuckled and said, “I would not say so, in the sense that the Holy Spirit picks out the Pope… I would say that the Spirit does not exactly take control of the affair, but rather like a good educator, as it were, leaves us much space, much freedom, without entirely abandoning us. Thus the Spirit’s role should be understood in a much more elastic sense, not that he dictates the candidate for whom one must vote. Probably the only assurance he offers is that the thing cannot be totally ruined.”

Pope Benedict’s nuanced response is surely correct. He acknowledges the sense in which the Holy Spirit isn’t responsible: the electors have free will to choose whom they will. But at the same time, he also acknowledges the sense in which the Holy Spirit is responsible: the Spirit’s elastic, educative approach ultimately envelops the process and shields the barque of Peter from shipwreck. And certainly in the last centuries, the Church has been blessed with some outstanding holders of the Keys of Peter. Think of those men from the last couple of centuries, whose cause for beatification has been successfully pursued: Pius IX, Pius X, Pius XII (Venerable), John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II. The Alexander VI’s and Boniface VIIIs are all very much in the past.

The manner in which the Press reports on the choice and election of the new Vicar of Christ has been very much as if it were a political appointment. Hence the mantra from the Cardinals, “not a successor of Francis, but a successor of Peter,” which gives us hope that while the human element is indeed present — the Cardinals vote, debate, and deliberate — we should hold firmly to the belief that God works through their hearts and minds as they cast their votes.

When the new Pope emerges on the balcony of St Peter’s (whatever his theological colours) some of his supporters may think to themselves that the Holy Spirit has dramatically intervened and secured the best man for the job. Some of his critics, on the other hand, might think that the God has just withdrawn his wisdom and left the Cardinals to pick the wrong person.

Neither would be right, and both would be thinking not as God does but as human beings do. Instead, the decision of the cardinal electors will resound with the same unified but distinctive force as that declaration of the first apostles: “For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…” (Acts 15:28)

The gospel readings at Mass during the Easter Octave give us the Resurrection appearances of Christ after Easter: to the two women, to Mary Magdalene, to the Twelve, to the two disciples on the Road to Emmaus, at the sea of Galilee. Each is given to prove that he is truly risen, truly alive — he talks with them, eats with them, allows them to touch him. On Easter Sunday we read from St Peter’s great sermon in Acts, that the Lord appeared to those “who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead”.

The Lord’s insistence that the Apostles recognised he was truly, bodily risen and alive was not only for their benefit, but for ours too. Our whole Christian faith centres on the resurrection of Christ. Had he not been raised from the dead, he would be no more than another great prophet or teacher. At worst, he would be a fraud. The resurrection is the guarantee that he is, indeed, God, and his words and actions are those of God himself. It is the guarantee that we can trust those words, and therefore trust that he will lead us to the Father and everlasting life. As St Paul says, “if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is also in vain.”

You and I are not able to eat and drink with Jesus as the Apostles did. We cannot put our fingers into the wounds made by the nails in his hands. We know that he rose from the dead because the Apostles knew. We believe because they believed. That is why it is the faith of the Apostles in the resurrection of the Lord that is the foundation of our Catholic faith: the whole deposit rests on the Apostolic witness of St Peter, St James, St John, and the others.

This Apostolic witness has continued down the centuries through the ministry of the successors of the Apostles, the Bishops of the Church, and especially in the ministry of the Pope. He, and they, are called to confirm their brethren in the faith, and to feed and care for the Lord’s flock. They continue to announce to us, as St Mary Magdalene announced to St Peter, that the Lord is truly risen.

We pray this week for our late Holy Father, Pope Francis, offering the sacrifice of the Mass for him so that he might be raised to new life in God’s kingdom and given the reward of his labours. But we also thank God for the Apostolic witness of His Holiness, who proclaimed the Lord’s resurrection to the end of his life. And we pray too for the Cardinals who will soon enter the conclave to elect a new Successor of St Peter, that the Holy Spirit will guide their deliberations, and give us a good and holy Pope to continue the proclamation of the joy of the Gospel.  

The Apostles are blessed because they saw the Lord; we have not seen him, yet we believe.

Four nights ago, in the gloom of the night that had just fallen, and under the light of the Paschal Candle, we began a solemn vigil. We retold the history of our salvation through the words of the scriptures culminating in the Gospel with those wondrous words, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, he is risen.” Those words usher in a new reality in our lives: that Christ’s Resurrection changes everything. That Paschal vigil truly begins, however, with one word, sung by the deacon before the Easter candle, “Rejoice!” We rejoice in hope, we rejoice in the promise made simply in the very fact of the the Risen Christ.

On Easter Sunday afternoon in Rome, Pope Francis gave some prophetic words before he pronounced what would be his last Urbi et Orbi blessing, his blessing to the city of Rome and to the world. His message said, “The Resurrection of Jesus is indeed the basis of our hope. For in the light of this event, hope is no longer an illusion… All those who put their hope in God place their feeble hands in his strong and mighty hand; they let themselves be raised up and set out on a journey. Together with the risen Jesus, they become pilgrims of hope, witnesses of the victory of love and of the disarmed power of Life.”

As we know, the next morning he was to set out on his own last journey, to stand before the same merciful and just judge before whom we all will stand, please God, filled with that hope which is no longer an illusion but is fulfilled in a person, in Our Lord Jesus Christ. The pontificate of Jorge Bergoglio was not without controversy. His approach to Catholics attached to more traditional forms of the Church’s worship was certainly regrettable, and caused deep hurt to many.

His words were often delivered in his customary informal style. They were all too often portrayed by papal commentators and journalists to be indicative of a liberal agenda, a modernising of an arcane institution, of a change in policy. Pope Francis, however, like any priest, was a servant of the truth, and that truth found in Christ Jesus and in his teaching is ever new but ever constant, and cannot be changed in the way the world would want it to. In the last analysis we might wonder what really has changed? Certainly none of the Church’s doctrine, but perhaps there has been a growth in other ways. It should be a badge of honour for a pope that he did nothing new, but said old truths in new ways.

Perhaps, after all, the core of the message of Pope Francis was a desire for the world to become changed, to become more aligned to the Good News of Christ rather than the other way around. Inspired by his predecessor, Pope Benedict, he advocated the inherent dignity of all people, he championed the forgotten, migrants, those who are most fragile and those on the margins. He advocated peace — the peace of Christ — as one of the necessary criteria for human flourishing and through his own public person-to-person encounters he often made himself a sign of compassion and welcome and love whilst, in essence, being doctrinally conservative — as all popes should be.

But he did also give new expression to ancient truth. Ten years ago, he decreed an extraordinary Jubilee, the Jubilee of Mercy for the whole Church — our own church was one of those throughout the world to have a Holy Door that year. He saw at the beginning of his pontificate a need for the world to know again the mercy God extends to us sinners. He gave a renewed call to come to the Sacrament of Confession, to penance for our sins and for us to grow in the virtues by way of “the richness encompassed by the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.” Seeing our God as a merciful God incarnate in the Lord Jesus was, for Pope Francis, central to our growth in holiness and in spreading the Gospel.

And that spread of the Gospel was, of course, to be communicated through the joy of knowing Christ. As with Pope St John Paul II and Pope Benedict before him, central to his teaching was that our Christian life should be infectious by the manner in which we live it, and that joy is the sign of God’s life in us. In his letter on devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the late Pope encouraged all of us to become missionaries of the Heart of Jesus — if we marvel and wonder at and rejoice in the love given to us in the Heart of Jesus, then we have to show that wonder and joy in the witness we give to others.

We are in the midst of nine days of mourning for our late Pope. These are not days for building up legacies, nor for wondering what will come next and who will succeed him. In these days we should pray for a poor sinner who — whilst he did much good and inspired many — was imperfect as a man and imperfect as a Pope, because there is only one who is perfect: Jesus Christ. We pray that God will give him a merciful judgement and — in the words of St John Henry Newman whom he canonised — now that the fever of life is over and his work is done, may God in his mercy give him safe lodging, a holy rest and peace at the last.