Father, Help Us

Pope Francis is in Belgium. Today, he met with the religious, priests, and seminarians in that part of the world. I wanted to say here, briefly, that the questions they asked of him are the questions on my heart as well, and I hope you will take a moment to watch this video of the encounter yourself.

The questions they asked our Holy Father are difficult to answer, but they are honest, and they come from our brothers and sisters in that very secularized country who are wrestling with the same difficulties we are here in the States.

It seems to me that at the heart of their questions is a cry for help with their way of life. They love the Lord and the Gospel. And they see that the Catholic Church is the Household of God, a living body of believers called to bring salvation to all peoples. But, how? That is the question. It is a question about the method.

The Holy Father responded that the present crisis is a “time given in order to make us question, to rouse us from sleep, and to rediscover the ways of the Spirit.” So you see that he wants us not to begin by trying to “fix” these times, per se, but to receive something from them, in a sense, or, through them, to receive something from the questions that emerge in these trying times, something that will help us to live this life.

And although we may want Pope Francis to “tell us what to do,” he is, I believe, choosing instead to model the posture he would have us assume, a posture of listening to God in prayer, which is why he said in response to the questions, “We must always ask ourselves, ‘What message does the Lord want to convey to us?’” He knows we are quicker to ask what the Pope says than to ask what does God say, but because, it seems to me, that he trusts that God will become present in our asking these things together - constantly, as it were, in a communal and ongoing discernment of spirits. I think the Lord leads the Holy Father to challenge that in us, even though it would be easier for him to lean on his authority and tell us what to do.

He went on to speak of a “Christianity of witness,” which, he said, “requires the courage to undertake an ecclesial conversion for enabling those pastoral transformations that concern our habitual ways of doing things, and the way in which we express our faith.” Those words are, I think, at the heart of his response. They speak to our discerning together, as a Church, what he calls “ecclesial conversion” and “pastoral transformations” of our “habitual ways of doing things.” This movement, I believe, is what he means by synodality.

“Priests,” he said, for example, “need this courage, in order to be priests who are not not just managing a past legacy, but are pastors who are in love with Jesus Christ, pastors who are attentive to responding to the often implicit demands of the Gospel.” His words cut me to the heart. It’s easy to fall into the habit of “managing a past legacy,” relying on my own strength to “get the job done,” but I always want more. I want that attentiveness of which he speaks, that attentiveness to what God is saying and doing in my midst.

I want that joy he speaks of, which would “sustain our lives, even in darkness,” the joy that comes from “knowing that we are not alone on our journey, and that even in situations of affliction God is near.” That’s the attentiveness he is speaking about. Joy is born of attentiveness. And it is our way of life that either helps or hinders us to live attentively to the closeness.

Synodality is a word that describes a way of life. It is a word about living together in such a way that we promote in one another an attentiveness to God’s movements in our lives. It is not really about doctrine. It is a method. And I believe it is Christ’s method. I don’t know what it will look like for us, exactly, this synodality that we’re being called to live together in these times. I believe it is possible for Christ to take on a human form, even now, as He has in the past - begotten, not made, conceived by the Holy Spirit. But I believe it begins with our being attentive to what the Holy Father is saying to us. +