Recorded on the roof of the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome are the words that Jesus Christ spoke to the apostle Peter the night before he died. “I have prayed for you, so that your faith does not fail,” said Jesus, orders Peter to “strengthen your brothers.”
The new serves as a work description for each man chosen to occupy the office of the successor of San Pedro, more recently for Pope Francis, who died Monday morning to 88 years.
The papacy is a humble office, despite the pomp that often surrounds it. The Pope is the custodian of a faith that has already been definitely revealed by Christ, prohibited by the divine law of teaching something different.
When he teaches, it is to emphasize and clarify aspects of faith that believes that the Church and the world need to listen.
Pope Francis, in his 12 years in office, has done so in an inimitable style. His predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, was a careful and soft voice. Francis, whose ministry was molded in the neighborhoods Or Buenos Aires, had a genius for the resounding and memorable phrase.
The potatoes are not infallible with everything, so we must expect the judgment of history and, ultimately, that of God, to determine Francis’s legacy. But for now, here there are four images of your teaching that have “strengthened me” very well, so I hope you remember it.
The smell of the sheep
Speaking to a group of priests a week after their choice (I was there a young seminarian), Francis used the biblical metaphor of a priest as a pastor, encouraging us to be so close to our people that we took “the smell of the smell of the”.
But not any of the sheep. Francis was talking on Holy Thursday, at the Mass where he blessed the sweet smell oils that Rome’s priests would use throughout the year, especially to anoint the sick and children in their baptism. The “smell of sheep”, then, is actually the “smell of Christ.” For our jealous work bringing his anointing to our people, the Pope said that his presence should also spray over us.
THE CAMPO HOSPITAL
Of the many images that the Scriptures use for the Church, Francis seized one in particular: the hospital, a place of rest and healing, and cools an interesting turn.
Due to the urgency of his work, he says, the church can be compared to a field hospital after a battle. Everyone who find the church has deep injuries of sin, and the way in which these wounds are treated could shape their eternal destiny. A field hospital keeps its focus on the general panorama: here, the transformative mercy of God.
The image has limits. Unlike a field hospital, the church is not temporary. Nor is it simply a place of recovery of trauma, but also or a cheerful friendship with God. (No one really costs stay In a field hospital.) But as a warning against a complicating or bureaucratic mentality, it makes the trick.
A disposable culture
Francis was known for his environmental concern, focusing, especially in the spiritual dangers that come from mass consumption habits. The modern west, he says, has become a “disposable culture”, where everything looks as disposable. When that attitude is transferred to people, the weak suffer more, the special of the elderly and not born.
Disposable culture also distorts our vision of ourselves, especially in the times we need to apologize. If I admit that I am broken, many wonder, will they discard me too?
I used or used Francis’s image by helping people prepare for confession. Putting a finger in this spiritual disease of our times helps to highlight on the contrary of God’s mercy.
The heart of Jesus
Many are familiar with the statues and paintings of Jesus that represent their heart in a visible form. Last year, Francis dedicated an important letter to this surprising expression of the Catholic image, explaining that the “sacred heart” of Jesus is the perfect image of God’s love.
“God love you” is something strange for some to listen, apparently too abstract to have any relevance to one’s life. But Christians believe that Jesus is full of God and full time, that all his human expressions of love are loaded with the power that the universe created.
And in fact, given that the true human body resurrected from among the dead, that human heart still beats with love for each person who created, an invitation to unite our hearts with his.
That Pope Francis now experiences in eternal life the love of which he spoke so often here below.
Fr. John Wilson is a priest of the Archdiocese or New York, where he has ministrated in several parishes.
