The Pope
sets us up in the first paragraph below, singing praises for all that the
Church does. It makes one feel proud. I’m sure that what he means by Church is not just the the Church
as institution, but the Church as the people of God. His hopefulness and
confidence in the goodness of people shines through his message. This is the
quality in our Pope that has endeared him to so many in so short a period of
time.
He is not a
softie however. The paragraphs that follow, although they do not abandon his
hopefulness and confidence, point to cultural flaws that diminish our efforts
to bring our world to Jesus. We can see ourselves subject to many of the
temptations Pope Francis describes and guilty of many attitudes and modes of
thinking uncharacteristic of a Christian.
Pope
Francis ends with a big finish in paragraphs 84 – 86. He knows how to work the
crowd. He returns to his characteristic faith, hope and confidence by quoting
Scripture and Blessed Pope John XXIII. His pastoral approach to the work of the
Papal office shows his true leadership qualities and accounts for the growing
love for him being expressed by the people of God.
The
highlights below have been added by me.
II. Temptations Faced by Pastoral Workers
76. I feel
tremendous gratitude to all those who are committed to working in and for the
Church. ... Rather, I would like to reflect on the challenges that all of them must
face in the context of our current globalized culture. But in justice, I must
say first that the contribution of the Church in today’s world is enormous. The
pain and the shame we feel at the sins of some members of the Church, and at
our own, must never make us forget how many Christians are giving their lives
in love. They help so many people to be healed or to die in peace in makeshift
hospitals. They are present to those enslaved by different addictions in the
poorest places on earth. They devote themselves to the education of children
and young people. They take care of the elderly who have been forgotten by
everyone else. They look for ways to communicate values in hostile
environments. They are dedicated in many other ways to showing an immense love
for humanity inspired by the God who became man. I am grateful for the
beautiful example given to me by so many Christians who joyfully sacrifice
their lives and their time. This witness comforts and sustains me in my own
effort to overcome selfishness and to give more fully of myself.
77. … At the same time, I would like to
call attention to certain particular temptations which affect pastoral workers.
Yes to the challenge of a missionary
spirituality
78. Today we are seeing in many pastoral
workers, including consecrated men and women, an inordinate concern for their
personal freedom and relaxation …. At the same time, the spiritual life
comes to be identified with a few religious exercises which can offer a certain
comfort but which do not encourage encounters with others, engagement with the world or a passion for evangelization.
As a result, one can observe in many agents of evangelization, even though they
pray, a heightened individualism, a crisis of identity and a cooling of fervour.
79. At times our media culture and some
intellectual circles convey a marked scepticism with regard to the Church’s
message, along with a certain cynicism. As a consequence, many pastoral workers,
although they pray, develop a sort of inferiority complex which leads them to
relativize or conceal their Christian identity and convictions. This
produces a vicious circle. They end up being unhappy with who they are and what
they do; they do not identify with their mission of evangelization and this
weakens their commitment. They end up stifling the joy of mission with a kind of obsession about being like
everyone else and possessing what everyone else possesses. Their work of
evangelization thus becomes forced, and they devote little energy and very
limited time to it.
80.
Pastoral workers can thus fall into a relativism
which, whatever their particular style of spirituality or way of thinking,
proves even more dangerous than doctrinal relativism. It has to do with the
deepest and inmost decisions that shape their way of life. This practical relativism consists in acting as if God did not exist,
making decisions as if the poor did not exist, setting goals as if others did
not exist, working as if people who have not received the Gospel did not exist.
It is striking that even some who clearly have solid doctrinal and spiritual
convictions frequently fall into a lifestyle which leads to an attachment to
financial security, or to a desire for power or human glory at all cost, rather
than giving their lives to others in mission. Let us not allow ourselves to be
robbed of missionary enthusiasm!
No to selfishness and spiritual sloth
81. At a
time when we most need a missionary dynamism which will bring salt and light to
the world, many lay people fear that they may be asked to undertake some
apostolic work and they seek to avoid any responsibility that may take away
from their free time. For example, it has become very difficult today to find
trained parish catechists willing to persevere in this work for some years.
Something similar is also happening with priests who are obsessed with protecting their free time. This is frequently due to the fact that people feel an overbearing
need to guard their personal freedom, as though the task of evangelization was
a dangerous poison rather than a joyful response to God’s love which summons us
to mission and makes us fulfilled and productive. Some resist giving
themselves over completely to mission and thus end up in a state of paralysis
and acedia.
82. The
problem is not always an excess of activity, but rather activity undertaken
badly, without adequate motivation, without a spirituality which would permeate
it and make it pleasurable. As
a result, work becomes more tiring than necessary, even leading at times to
illness. Far from a content and happy tiredness, this is a tense, burdensome,
dissatisfying and, in the end, unbearable fatigue. This pastoral acedia can be
caused by a number of things. Some fall into it because they throw themselves
into unrealistic
projects and are not
satisfied simply to do what they reasonably can. Others, because they lack the
patience to allow processes to mature; they want everything to fall from
heaven. Others, because they are attached to a few
projects or vain dreams of success. Others, because they have lost real contact
with people and so depersonalize their work that they are more concerned with
the road map than with the journey itself. Others fall into acedia because they
are unable to wait; they want to dominate the rhythm of life. Today’s obsession
with immediate results makes it hard for pastoral workers to tolerate anything
that smacks of disagreement, possible failure, criticism, the cross.
83. And so the biggest threat of all gradually
takes shape: “the gray pragmatism of the daily life of the Church, in which all
appears to proceed normally, while in reality faith is wearing down and
degenerating into small-mindedness”. A tomb psychology thus develops and slowly
transforms Christians into mummies in a museum. Disillusioned with reality,
with the Church and with themselves, they experience a constant temptation to
cling to a faint melancholy, lacking in hope,
which seizes the heart like “the most precious of the devil’s potions”. Called to radiate light and
communicate life, in the end they are caught up in things that generate only
darkness and inner weariness, and slowly consume all zeal for the apostolate.
For all this, I repeat: Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of the joy of
evangelization!
No to a sterile pessimism
84. The joy of the Gospel is such that it
cannot be taken away from us by anyone or anything (cf. Jn 16:22). The evils of
our world – and those of the Church – must not be excuses for diminishing our
commitment and our fervour. Let us look upon them as challenges which can help
us to grow. With
the eyes of faith, we can see the light which the Holy Spirit always radiates
in the midst of darkness, never forgetting that “where sin increased, grace has
abounded all the more” (Rom 5:20). Our faith is challenged to discern how wine
can come from water and how wheat can grow in the midst of weeds. Fifty years
after the Second Vatican Council, we are distressed by the troubles of our age
and far from naive optimism; yet the fact that we are more realistic must not
mean that we are any less trusting in the Spirit or less generous. In this sense, we can once again listen to
the words of Blessed John XXIII on the memorable day of 11 October 1962: “At times we have to
listen, much to our regret, to the voices of people who, though burning with
zeal, lack a sense of discretion and measure. In this modern age they can see
nothing but prevarication and ruin ... We feel that we must disagree with those
prophets of doom who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the
world were at hand. In our times, divine Providence is leading us to a new
order of human relations which, by human effort and even beyond all
expectations, are directed to the fulfilment of God’s superior and inscrutable
designs, in which everything, even human setbacks, leads to the greater good of
the Church”.
85. One of the more serious temptations which
stifles boldness and zeal is a defeatism which turns us into querulous and disillusioned
pessimists, “sourpusses”. Nobody can go off to battle unless he is fully
convinced of victory beforehand. If we start without confidence, we have
already lost half the battle and we bury our talents. While painfully aware of our own frailties, we have to march on without
giving in, keeping in mind what the Lord said to Saint Paul: “My grace is
sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9).
Christian triumph is always a cross, yet a cross which is at the same time a victorious
banner borne with aggressive tenderness against
the assaults of evil. The evil spirit of defeatism is brother to the temptation
to separate, before its time, the wheat from the weeds; it is the fruit of an
anxious and self-centred lack of trust.
86. In some places a spiritual
“desertification” has evidently come about, as the result of attempts by some
societies to build without God or to eliminate their Christian roots. In
those places “the Christian world is becoming sterile, and it is depleting
itself like an overexploited ground, which transforms into a desert”. In other countries, violent
opposition to Christianity forces Christians to hide their faith in their own
beloved homeland. This is another painful kind of desert. But family and the workplace
can also be a parched place where faith nonetheless has to be preserved and
communicated. Yet “it is starting from
the experience of this desert, from this void, that we can again discover the
joy of believing, its vital importance for us men and women. In the desert we
rediscover the value of what is essential for living; thus in today’s world
there are innumerable signs, often expressed implicitly or negatively, of the
thirst for God, for the ultimate meaning of life. And in the desert people of
faith are needed who, by the example of their own lives, point out the way to
the Promised Land and keep hope alive”. In these
situations we are called to be living sources of water from which others can
drink. At times, this becomes a heavy cross, but it was from the cross, from
his pierced side, that our Lord gave himself to us as a source of living water.
Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of hope!
