Whenever I listen to our Holy Father, Pope Leo, speak, I feel as if a bad spell was quietly broken, a cloud lifted. I am reminded of the roots of our faith and that I need to get back home to them.
We have heard again and again that we are all brothers and sisters, that God is love, that God is a God of life and that Jesus weeps for the harm we do one another. We know we are supposed to love one another as Jesus has loved us. We know that if we commit an act of violence it had better be in self defense or in the defense of the weak or of someone else in danger and that we should only use violence as a judicious last resort. We have heard all these things so many times perhaps they risk sounding trite to us now.
Our Pope has recently been calling out injustice, war, hate and the profiting from those same things. He reminds us that “Gods Heart is torn,” when he sees the destruction of human life and the damage the perpetrators of violence do to their own souls. I heard these things with relief actually. I’ve been very tuned in to the suffering, injustice and chaos we are seeing at home and abroad. “I speak of peace but when I speak they are for war,” as the Psalmist says. (Ps.120:7) It has been difficult for me to watch some people rejoice in violence and in the sorrow and death of others. I don’t understand it. As St. Teresa of Avila wrote, “Yours are the eyes of compassion through which God looks upon the world.” Well that part doesn’t seem to be going too well for some, and perhaps entirely too well for me. OK what I have really been is furious at the people behind it and at the people laughing at it or glorifying it.
Pope Leo serenely says we are all brothers and sisters and I am gently but suddenly redirected. I remember that God is love and that I am supposed to be love too. I remember that it isn’t people we fight against in times like these. It’s the powers and principalities of darkness themselves. How have we been taught to render the devil helpless? Not by any method of vainglorious desire for power over people or things, but by the beauty Satan doesn’t have. He has no love, certainly no humility or obedience, gentleness, joy, peacefulness or the true strength found in quiet trust. He can quote scripture all day long but he is only using it as a tool to serve himself, to cause more harm, hate, pride and vanity among the scattered people of God.
Satan brings confusion but the Holy Spirit gives clarity. That seems to be what listening to Pope Leo does for me as well. I think to myself, “This is why we have a Pope.”
He is the Vicar of Christ until Our Lord returns. His words are of value to us. I know there has been a lot of silly controversy over his preaching on peace. Some have taken offense and in some cases have even left the Church. (This grieves me deeply and is hard for me to understand).
We are Catholic. Maybe we don’t always agree with every word the Pope says but we must respect the Pope, love him, pray for him, and stand with him whatever comes. It’s what we do. We trust his apostolic authority to speak from the Chair of Peter and to guide us in matters of faith and morals. War is a moral issue. If it isn’t what is? The pope is our father in faith. His voice is gentle and directed for the good of all, even when he says “stop!”
I invite you to allow the Pope to speak to you. Sit down with any passage he has written and ask for the light of the Holy Spirit to bring to the surface for you anything he wants you to hear. Read your chosen passage in an attentive way with an open heart. Let the Chief Shepherd in charge of the flock of Christ call you home. It’s what he is there to do. Remember the bright finery we have in our faith, the endless treasures of the Gospel, the love we have found and that we strive to share.
Maybe start with this:
“The heart of the Gospel is the love of God that makes us brothers and sisters. God loves us all, and in his love we are one. In Christ, we belong to one another, called to walk together as neighbors and friends, building a world where peace can dwell. This is the hour for love: to love not in words alone, but in truth, as Jesus loved us.” – Pope Leo XIV
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