This weekend instead of preaching I am reading a wonderful reflection by Pope Francis. He gave it on the evening of Friday 27th March last year, 2020, based on what is this Sunday's gospel . He was speaking to an empty St Peter's Square at the begining of the pandemic, and the address was followed by a time of eucharistic adoration in the porch of St Peter's and then a blessing "urbi et orbi" with the host. It was raining heavily. I watched it live and was mesmerised. Here are his words translated from the Italian.
“When evening had come”. The Gospel passage we have
just heard begins like this. For weeks now it has been evening. Thick
darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it
has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence
and a distressing void, that stops everything as it passes by; we feel
it in the air, we notice in people’s gestures, their glances give them
away. We find ourselves afraid and lost. Like the disciples in the
Gospel we were caught off guard by an unexpected, turbulent storm. We
have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and
disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called
to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other. On this
boat… are all of us. Just like those disciples, who spoke anxiously with
one voice, saying “We are perishing”, so we too have realized
that we cannot go on thinking of ourselves, but only together can we do
this.
It is easy to recognize ourselves in this story. What is harder to
understand is Jesus’ attitude. While his disciples are quite naturally
alarmed and desperate, he is in the stern, in the part of the boat that
sinks first. And what does he do? In spite of the tempest, he sleeps on
soundly, trusting in the Father; this is the only time in the Gospels we
see Jesus sleeping. When he wakes up, after calming the wind and the
waters, he turns to the disciples in a reproaching voice: “Why are you
afraid? Have you no faith?”.
Let us try to understand. In what does the lack of the disciples’
faith consist, as contrasted with Jesus’ trust? They had not stopped
believing in him; in fact, they called on him. But we see how they call
on him: “Teacher, do you not care if we perish?” (v. 38). Do you not care:
they think that Jesus is not interested in them, does not care about
them. One of the things that hurts us and our families most when we hear
it said is: “Do you not care about me?” It is a phrase that wounds and
unleashes storms in our hearts. It would have shaken Jesus too. Because
he, more than anyone, cares about us. Indeed, once they have called on
him, he saves his disciples from their discouragement.
The storm exposes our vulnerability and uncovers those false and
superfluous certainties around which we have constructed our daily
schedules, our projects, our habits and priorities. It shows us how we
have allowed to become dull and feeble the very things that nourish,
sustain and strengthen our lives and our communities. The tempest lays
bare all our prepackaged ideas and forgetfulness of what nourishes our
people’s souls; all those attempts that anesthetize us with ways of
thinking and acting that supposedly “save” us, but instead prove
incapable of putting us in touch with our roots and keeping alive the
memory of those who have gone before us. We deprive ourselves of the
antibodies we need to confront adversity.
In this storm, the façade of those stereotypes with which we
camouflaged our egos, always worrying about our image, has fallen away,
uncovering once more that (blessed) common belonging, of which we cannot
be deprived: our belonging as brothers and sisters.
“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” Lord, your word this
evening strikes us and regards us, all of us. In this world, that you
love more than we do, we have gone ahead at breakneck speed, feeling
powerful and able to do anything. Greedy for profit, we let ourselves
get caught up in things, and lured away by haste. We did not stop at
your reproach to us, we were not shaken awake by wars or injustice
across the world, nor did we listen to the cry of the poor or of our
ailing planet. We carried on regardless, thinking we would stay healthy
in a world that was sick. Now that we are in a stormy sea, we implore
you: “Wake up, Lord!”.
“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” Lord, you are calling
to us, calling us to faith. Which is not so much believing that you
exist, but coming to you and trusting in you. This Lent your call
reverberates urgently: “Be converted!”, “Return to me with all your
heart” (Joel 2:12). You are calling on us to seize this time of trial as a time of choosing.
It is not the time of your judgement, but of our judgement: a time to
choose what matters and what passes away, a time to separate what is
necessary from what is not. It is a time to get our lives back on track
with regard to you, Lord, and to others. We can look to so many
exemplary companions for the journey, who, even though fearful, have
reacted by giving their lives. This is the force of the Spirit poured
out and fashioned in courageous and generous self-denial. It is the life
in the Spirit that can redeem, value and demonstrate how our lives are
woven together and sustained by ordinary people – often forgotten people
– who do not appear in newspaper and magazine headlines nor on the
grand catwalks of the latest show, but who without any doubt are in
these very days writing the decisive events of our time: doctors,
nurses, supermarket employees, cleaners, caregivers, providers of
transport, law and order forces, volunteers, priests, religious men and
women and so very many others who have understood that no one reaches
salvation by themselves. In the face of so much suffering, where the
authentic development of our peoples is assessed, we experience the
priestly prayer of Jesus: “That they may all be one” (Jn 17:21).
How many people every day are exercising patience and offering hope,
taking care to sow not panic but a shared responsibility. How many
fathers, mothers, grandparents and teachers are showing our children, in
small everyday gestures, how to face up to and navigate a crisis by
adjusting their routines, lifting their gaze and fostering prayer. How
many are praying, offering and interceding for the good of all. Prayer
and quiet service: these are our victorious weapons.
The Lord asks us and, in the midst of our tempest, invites us to
reawaken and put into practice that solidarity and hope capable of
giving strength, support and meaning to these hours when everything
seems to be floundering. The Lord awakens so as to reawaken and revive
our Easter faith. We have an anchor: by his cross we have been saved. We
have a rudder: by his cross we have been redeemed. We have a hope: by
his cross we have been healed and embraced so that nothing and no one
can separate us from his redeeming love. In the midst of isolation when
we are suffering from a lack of tenderness and chances to meet up, and
we experience the loss of so many things, let us once again listen to
the proclamation that saves us: he is risen and is living by our side.
The Lord asks us from his cross to rediscover the life that awaits us,
to look towards those who look to us, to strengthen, recognize and
foster the grace that lives within us. Let us not quench the wavering
flame (cf. Is 42:3) that never falters, and let us allow hope to be rekindled.
Embracing his cross means finding the courage to embrace all the
hardships of the present time, abandoning for a moment our eagerness for
power and possessions in order to make room for the creativity that
only the Spirit is capable of inspiring. It means finding the courage to
create spaces where everyone can recognize that they are called, and to
allow new forms of hospitality, fraternity and solidarity. By his cross
we have been saved in order to embrace hope and let it strengthen and
sustain all measures and all possible avenues for helping us protect
ourselves and others. Embracing the Lord in order to embrace hope: that
is the strength of faith, which frees us from fear and gives us hope.
“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith”?Dear brothers and
sisters, from this place that tells of Peter’s rock-solid faith, I would
like this evening to entrust all of you to the Lord, through the
intercession of Mary, Health of the People and Star of the stormy Sea.
From this colonnade that embraces Rome and the whole world, may God’s
blessing come down upon you as a consoling embrace. Lord, may you bless
the world, give health to our bodies and comfort our hearts. You ask us
not to be afraid. Yet our faith is weak and we are fearful. But you,
Lord, will not leave us at the mercy of the storm. Tell us again: “Do
not be afraid” (Mt 28:5). And we, together with Peter, “cast all our anxieties onto you, for you care about us” (cf. 1 Pet 5:7)
