By Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB, Archdiocese of Perth
The ministry of Peter in the Church, realised in the ministry of the Bishop of Rome, must be, says John Paul, “a sign of mercy” for the ministry of the Bishop of Rome is “a ministry of mercy, born of an act of Christ’s own mercy” (93).
If Pope, now Saint, John Paul II wrote about this, then Francis, in a powerful and captivating way, is enfleshing this insight in his own way of exercising his primacy as Pope.
This is particularly the case in terms of the insistence of Pope Francis on the centrality of God’s mercy at the heart of his own life and ministry and at the heart of the Church’s vocation as he understands it.
Pope Francis very regularly remarks that he is himself a sinner.
This, of course, is the case for all of us, and a similar expression might be often found on our lips as well.
The danger is, unfortunately, that this might be little more than a ritual statement with little conviction behind it.
It seems to me that we cannot accuse Pope Francis of this. We are told, for example, that when Cardinal Borgoglio was asked if he accepted election as pope he replied in this way: “I am a sinner but I trust in the infinite patience and mercy of Our Lord Jesus Christ”.
He returned to this theme in the famous interview he gave to the Italian journalist Antonio Spadaro.
In that interview, he reflected on Caravaggio’s painting of Jesus calling Matthew, the tax collector. “That’s me,” he said, “I feel like him… This is me, a sinner, on whom the Lord has turned his gaze”.
Pope Francis gave visible witness to this deep awareness of his sinfulness when recently he went to confession in St Peter’s basilica to one of the priests who was rostered on to hear the confessions of the faithful during a penitential service.
Having made his own confession, the Pope then went on to hear the confessions of others.
We can be sure that all this is not empty words or theatrical gestures on the part of Francis. He is deeply conscious of his own sinfulness, as Simon Peter was.
The Pope is also deeply conscious of having received the mercy of God, or as he himself puts it, of having the gaze of the Lord turned on him. Peter too knew what it was to have the Lord gaze upon him.
In Luke’s Gospel, it is when Jesus looks straight at Peter after Peter’s denials that Peter remembers the Lord’s prophecy that Peter would deny him – and he weeps bitterly.
But in John’s Gospel, on the shore of the Lake, the Lord turns his gaze on Peter again – and his eyes convey compassion, mercy, forgiveness and the promise of a new beginning: feed my lambs, look after my sheep.
To be a Christian is to be someone who sees with the eyes of Jesus. To put it another way, to be a Christian is to be someone in whose eyes people experience the loving and merciful gaze of Christ.
But it is only when we have allowed Jesus to gaze on us that we can begin to see as he sees, and people will see him in us.
This, it seems to me, is what Francis is reminding us of and modelling for us as he lives each day, in all its variety, his ministry as Bishop of Rome. It is certainly what he is saying to the bishops and priests.
During his trip to Brazil for World Youth Day, he told the Brazilian bishops that “we need a Church capable of rediscovering the maternal womb of mercy. Without mercy, we have little chance nowadays of entering the world of wounded persons in need of understanding, forgiveness and love”.
Sometimes people worry about this stress on mercy, as if it could somehow devalue or even betray the idea of God’s justice, or because it might lead the Church to betray its own teaching because of a fear of challenging people with a painful truth.
In this regard, we might remember the words of Cardinal Kasper in a book which Pope Francis has said “has done me so much good”, particularly because of its call for the Church to develop a deeper theology of “the mercy of God, this merciful Father who is so patient”.
In the book, Cardinal Kasper wrote that “mercy without truth would be consolation lacking honesty” and would be simply “empty chatter”.
But, on the other hand, he wrote, “truth without mercy would be cold, off-putting and ready to wound”. And perhaps here there is an insight the Pope also is asking us to consider.
In all our pastoral and evangelising activity, in all our outreach to others, we must keep the goal in mind – and the goal must surely be to lead people to God rather than to drive them away.
We must, in one of Francis’ most striking images, make the Church ever more like a field hospital where the primary aim is to heal the wounds, and warm the hearts, of those who have been so badly hurt by life – and by the ravages of sin.
What will help? What will heal? What will open up a pathway to a new encounter with God?
This, in fact, is the question Pope Francis poses when he reflects on the Sacrament of Penance or Reconciliation.
In Evangelii Gaudium 44, the Pope reminds priests that the confessional “must not be a torture chamber but rather an encounter with the Lord’s mercy which spurs us on to do our best”.
Francis then goes on to say that “a small step, in the midst of great human limitations, can be more pleasing to God than a life which appears outwardly in order but which moves through the day without confronting great difficulties”.
In saying this, Pope Francis is really directing our gaze to Jesus, as the Year of Grace invited us to do here in Australia not so long ago.
Francis makes this invitation quite specific in Evangelii Gaudium when he reminds us that “Jesus’ whole life, his way of dealing with the poor, his actions, his integrity, his simple daily acts of generosity, and finally his complete self-giving, is precious and reveals the mystery of his divine life” (265).
Furthermore, Francis tells us, “Whenever we encounter this anew, we become convinced that it is exactly what others need, even though they may not recognise it”.
Francis, of course, is convinced that “We have a treasure of life and love which cannot deceive, and a message which cannot mislead or disappoint. It penetrates to the depths of our hearts, sustaining and ennobling us. It is a truth which is never out of date because it reaches that part of us which nothing else can reach. Our infinite sadness can only be cured by an infinite love” (265).
But Francis is also convinced, as Benedict was before him and as John Paul II was before Benedict, that “it is impossible to persevere in a fervent evangelisation unless we are convinced from personal experience that it is not the same thing to have known Jesus as not to have known him, not the same thing to walk with him as to walk blindly, not the same thing to hear his word as not to know it, and not the same thing to contemplate him, to worship him, to find our peace in him, as not to” (266).
Francis sums this up by reminding us that “in union with Jesus, we seek what he seeks and we love what he loves” (267). And he further reminds us that “a person who is not convinced, enthusiastic, certain and in love, will convince nobody” (266).
In saying all this, we can, I believe, be quite confident that this is the conviction on which Francis is building his pontificate.
Realistically and genuinely conscious of his sinfulness, as Peter also was, Francis is aware of his own need for mercy and aware, too, that, as the recipient of God’s mercy, he must be a bearer of God’s mercy to others.
But Francis, it seems to me, is also conscious that this mercy is experienced in his intimacy with the Lord and in his encounters with him, just as it was for Peter.
Peter knew, when he was sinking beneath the waves as he was overwhelmed by the storm, that there was only one place to go: “Save me Lord, I am going under.” Francis is telling us the same thing.
“How good it is,” he writes, “to stand before a crucifix, or on our knees before the Blessed Sacrament, and simply to be in his presence! How much good it does us when he once more touches our lives and impels us to share his new life! What then happens is that “we speak of what we have seen and heard” (1 Jn 1:3).
The best incentive for sharing the Gospel comes from contemplating it with love, lingering over its pages and reading it with the heart.
If we approach it in this way, its beauty will amaze and constantly excite us. But if this is to come about, we need to recover a contemplative spirit which can help us to realise ever anew that we have been entrusted with a treasure which makes us more human and helps us to lead a new life.
There is nothing more precious which we can give to others (EG264).
Of course, Francis is right. If Jesus really is to be the model for each individual Christian and for each Christian community, we must spend more time reflecting on how Jesus relates to people, especially to those who are in great need.
It is good to remind ourselves, as Francis does, that because of the mystery of the incarnation in Jesus, we see, expressed in a human way, God’s way of encountering sinners.
When Jesus found himself confronted by the woman caught in adultery who had been forcibly dragged before him, what was his first word to her? “I don’t condemn you”.
Only then did he tell her to “go, and sin no more”. Could it be that she could only hear the second word because of the first word she heard from Jesus’ lips?
And when Jesus saw the hated and rejected tax-collector Zacchaeus sitting up in the tree, what was the first thing Zacchaeus heard from Jesus?
A word of welcome, of honour, of acceptance – and it was this that led Zacchaeus to a new way of life.
Perhaps this is what mercy, misericordia, (that heart for the poor, and those who are suffering, excluded and in distress) looks like in practice.
It is what Peter experienced when the gaze of Jesus fell upon him on the shore of the lake after the resurrection, and which changed him from a stumbling block to a rock of faith.
It is what Francis is asking of the Church today. It is what Francis is showing us as he models the ministry of St Peter in our contemporary Church.