Faith, Love and Christ
Celebrating John XXIII - 11th October, 2016
Gal 5: 1-6; Lk 11: 37-41
When the Pharisee invited Jesus to come home, Jesus did not mind at all going over and dining with him. In spite of feeling honoured by his invitation having been accepted, the Pharisee was more worried about Jesus washing or not washing his hands, rituals followed or not, circumcision or no circumcision, laws and fulfillment of laws...Jesus gets upset over it. The happiness of having a guest is lost in the judgements that the host was passing on the guest. The joy of togetherness is lost in the the insistence of legality. The true sense of love is lost when one picks and chooses whom to show his or her love. Paul redifines faith in Jesus' terms - it is to acknowledge that Christ has set us free! We are not under any yoke anymore. Nothing can bind us except the love of the Father made manifest in the Son and poured into our hearts through the Spirit. Why do we want to give into that yoke again by equating our faith to 'doing' something, 'performing rituals' instead of relating to God with a free heart. That freedom is born only out of love.
Pope St. John XXIII brought this very strongly into the Church. In celebrating him we are celebrating a great icon of the year of mercy, for the following reasons.
- He was the one who convoked the Vatican Council II to ensure that the Church lives upto what Jesus said: what I want is mercy and not sacrifice.
- He was a loving person, known as a loved bishop and a smiling Pope! He was mercy personified and in his personality he upheld faith and love, and thus Christ.
- He was someone who showed what mercy in concrete term would mean...he stood by the poor, the marginalised and the working class, as a Bishop and later as a Pope.
Pope St. John XXIII has for long been an inspiration to Pope Francis, right from the time he was a seminarian Mario Bergoglio. And ofcourse we see the signs of this in Pope Francis' life. His simplicity, radicality and down-to-earth spirituality is a great replication of John XXIII.
