THE WORD AND THE SAINT
October 11, 2022: Celebrating Pope St. John XXIIIGalatians 5: 1-6; Luke 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 celebrate a great experience of the Church in the recent times.
- 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. And today we celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Commencement of the great Council.
- 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 upheld Christ. And that is what Pope Francis is insisting upon in this era, that the Church should become the mercy incarnate in the world.
- John XXIII was someone who showed in his life what Church is called to do...he stood by the poor, the marginalised and the working class, as a Bishop and later as a Pope and called the Church to go to the periphery and to the margins of the human society.
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 today we could pray for the present Pope as we thank God for the historical Saint-Pope.