Pope Francis
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.