Passion Sunday 17.3.13 Always hope
We have a new Pope, and we pray for him.
We saw the huge crowd cheering in the square. At one stage they were cheering just the white smoke, without knowing who the Pope was or anything about him. Just the knowledge that there was a Pope caused joy.
There is a certain sense of security in knowing we have a Shepherd to watch over us. We know Popes are human and can have faults, but the visibility and tangibility of the Pope bring home to us that we have another Father, and another Shepherd, who are free of all fault – no less than God the Father and God the Son.
We can have fears and reservations and we know that the future is likely to be difficult, but still there is a genuine basis for the joy of such occasions.
At such times we transcend the merely human and feel a direct link with the Divine.
Despite so many things not being as they should it is still true that God is in His heaven. And all is not right with the world, but at least it is within range of being right.
No amount of trouble can overpower us or displace us. Nothing can separate us from the love of God (Rm8,38).
The election of a Pope brings on a sense of newness, of freshness, a reminder that God is capable at any time of intervening for good in our times.
We feel a renewed desire to be holy, to escape from the bondage of sin; to start again.
There is a lot of work to do, but we sense we can do it, with renewed faith in God.
He has somehow kept the frail vessel of the Church floating through stormy waters for two thousand years.
Through countless external persecutions, continuous internal divisions, and the prolific sinfulness of the Church’s members - we are still here, somehow. Only a miracle could account for it.
Only God could make it so. Knowing this, whatever we think of the current state of the Church, we cannot despair if He is still with us.
The scandals, the loss of faith, the absence of young people – these are big issues, but not big enough to finish the Church; not if God is still in His heaven.
He is the bedrock of our existence. He is all good and only good. And we draw from that goodness whenever we acknowledge or call upon Him.
So we can be confident even against the apparent odds.
The Pope is the Vicar of Christ. He is the visible reminder that we have a Shepherd who is perfect enough to make the flock perfect.
Through all our human frailties we survive. And even those frailties can decrease as we shed bad habits, and take on new good habits.
We do not just survive but thrive; the Church gets bigger and better.
Lately all we seem to do is apologise. We need to do that, but we must also evangelise.
We must make known the reality of this perfect Shepherd, who links earth to Heaven. He brings the perfection of God to the earth (Gospel). And He takes a perfected humanity into Heaven (Epistle).
Christ is both here and there, earth and heaven - both God and Man, and perfect as both. In Him is the link we need. In Him is life.
However much we suffer we can always bring Him down to us, or let ourselves be lifted by Him.
Indeed we do have something to cheer about. We have a Pope, and better still, we have a Saviour.
The world watched the Pope emerge. May they also see the One whom that Pope represents.
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