“When evening had come” (Mk 4:35).
“For weeks now it has been evening. Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void, that stops everything as it passes by; we feel it in the air, we notice in people’s gestures, their glances give them away. We find ourselves afraid and lost. Like the disciples in the Gospel we were caught off guard by an unexpected, turbulent storm. We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other.”
This begun Pope Francis his address to the world. There he stood, having mounted the steps at the arm of his attendent, an old man in a large frame, head of the Catholic Church and its 1.2 billion followers, clad all in white, sheltered from steady rain as he faced an empty Square of St. Peter’s.
Putting aside my resistance to many things Church, I was moved to tears by his understanding of the suffering caused by the pandemic and the eloquence of his solace. From his [god’s] lips to my heart.
“It is the life in the Spirit that can redeem, value and demonstrate how our lives are woven together and sustained by ordinary people – often forgotten people – who do not appear in newspaper and magazine headlines nor on the grand catwalks of the latest show, but who without any doubt are in these very days writing the decisive events of our time: doctors, nurses, supermarket employees, cleaners, caregivers, providers of transport, law and order forces, volunteers, priests, religious men and women and so very many others who have understood that no one reaches salvation by themselves.
In the face of so much suffering, where the authentic development of our peoples is assessed, we experience the priestly prayer of Jesus: “That they may all be one” (Jn 17:21). How many people every day are exercising patience and offering hope, taking care to sow not panic but a shared responsibility. How many fathers, mothers, grandparents and teachers are showing our children, in small everyday gestures, how to face up to and navigate a crisis by adjusting their routines, lifting their gaze and fostering prayer. How many are praying, offering and interceding for the good of all.”
Full text
Partical recording with simultaneous translation
Photo by YARA NARDI / POOL / AFP
As a former Catholic I appreciate this! Thanks.