FAREWELL TO
FRANCIS
Inevitably, the
BBC speculates who will be the next pope. But it is a little tiresome as they
never get it right. Francis came from nowhere and was on no one’s guess list.
Yet he was just the pope we needed. Coming from the ‘ends of the earth’, as he
mentioned on that first evening as pope, he had none of the ‘baggage’ centuries
of the European mind frames normally land on a pope even before he dons his
white soutane.
His first words
from the balcony of the residence adjoining St Peter’s were ‘Buona Sera’ (Good
evening). Can you think of anything more banal as the day closes? Yet they
unleashed a storm of greeting from the crowds waiting below in St Peter’s
square. They marked something distinctly ordinary and down to earth in the new
pope’s approach and the people immediately recognised it.
From then on, he
connected with people all along the way for twelve years. We can remember, with
immense gratitude, all the ways he expressed this ‘connectedness’. His first
substantial message, in 2013, was called, The Joy of the Gospel. From a
full heart, he shared with us his joy at the good news Jesus brought us through
his life, death and resurrection. There
is much to reflect on in its 288 paragraphs but one that is memorable is #223
where he writes, ‘giving priority to time means being concerned about
initiating processes rather than possessing spaces.’ In other words, we often
desire to possess - a farm, a qualification, even a constitution or a
‘final’ report. But we can be less concerned about the process of achieving our
goal. Francis urges us to get the process right no matter how long it
takes. That is messier and less glamorous. The Vatican Council called for
synodality in the modern Church. A noble ideal. But the council did not go into
how this was to be done. Francis did. And he knew he would not live to see the
results. But he was content to set the process in motion.
Two years later,
in 2015, Francis published Laudato Si on care of the earth, our common
home. ‘Progress in technology is not the same as the progress of humanity’
(#113). We cannot squeeze riches from the earth with no thought for the future.
We have to make choices to preserve the earth for our children and
grandchildren. Our crisis is not a technical one but a moral one.
Then, in 2016,
Francis issued the third of his four great letters. This one, on The Joy of
Love ran to 325 paragraphs. (He always wrote comprehensively and at length
but one does not have to read him all at once like a book. Each section is food
for reflection and prayer). Here his emphasis is on encouraging families,
marriages and fidelity in relationships. He writes of the vice of ‘wanting it
all now’ (#275). Again we see his call to see life as a process, not a
possession. In this letter he caused a furore among some Catholics for
insisting on the primacy of compassion over law.
‘Life, for all its
confrontations, is the art of encounter’, he wrote in his fourth letter, Fratelli
Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship, in 2020, quoting an Argentinian
writer, ‘no one is useless and no one is expendable’, (# 215). Francis makes a
plea to us to go beyond individual security and isolation. It is as if one
says, ‘I am alright. As long as I have what I want, the rest of the world is
none of my business.’ But we are all part of one another. One global community
on one planet.
There were
countless other occasions when Francis shared his message. He wanted us to
‘open our eyes’ (Luke 24:31) as the disciples did at Easter, and see the
call to reach out to others - especially the poor, the marginalised, the
migrants - in love and compassion. Everybody is important. Everyone has
something to contribute.
I hope we do not
just remember his message and celebrate his life. I hope we can also engage in
processes – personal and global - that will move our world closer to the plan
God wants for his people.
David Harold
Barry
