The shoes of the fisherman!
I was raised in what might be described as a hard rock Baptist church even though, in retrospect, it was a very literate church. I had no idea what being ecumenical meant because my limited childlike focus was fixed on the idea of getting up on Sunday morning and going to church and Sunday school. The sermons were always interesting to me, mainly because I wanted to get to lunch and they had to end before that could occur. We knew of other churches and the fact that some of those that we knew went to those churches. But we distinctly remember that it dawned on us one day that the Catholics were different, by far, than any other church that we knew of. And we were not sure of what to make of that fact. We remember deciding on the spur of the moment that they might be slightly anti Christian but we weren’t sure exactly what that all meant.
As the years rolled by, we became more conscious of our faith and of the faith that others participated in. The election of John F. Kennedy made a tremendous difference in our perception of Catholicism. We were also dyed in the wool republican as were our parents and we did not like it when Kennedy was elected president. But we were growing older and more aware and we had developed a friend or two who went to the local Catholic church. Our ties to the Catholic faith had previously been the awareness that, in grade school, you had to each fish every Friday. The Kennedy years changed all of that as we came to deeply love this Catholic president for the tremendous personality that he really was. We suffered deeply with our Catholic friends the day that John Kennedy died and watching the Catholic influence in his funeral was a tremendous influence on us. At about that same time, the papacy of John the twenty third took place and we began to read about the changes that he was making to the Catholic way of worship. We remember the way that he was revered at his death and how the world mourned him.
Now we are in our sixties and our views on faith and religion have changed much over the years. We now attend a Methodist church and our views on politics have done a one eighty from those of a Republican to those of what is now considered a liberal democrat. But our views have a healthy mixture of pragmatism!
We had been less than happy with the last Catholic pope for many reasons, not the least of them being the fact that he had tried to undo so many of the reforms that John the twenty third had done. But, then again, we have seen much in our lives and even much during this current Lenten season.
We made a day trip this week with a pair of sisters (not nuns) who taught us something about life and the Catholic faith. The older of the two of them has had a pretty rough go of it over the last two years or so as she has lost her only son after a great deal of suffering and then seen her husband of fifty two years die on the operating table just a few months ago. To top it off, she just had cancer surgery within the last month, but, she struggled up to accompany us on our annual pilgrimage to the wine country of southern Illinois. Her sister said that she so hoped to have a good day with us. As we sat over a glass of wine at one of our stops the conversation turned to the papal selection and we made known our views on the last pope. She gently told us that there was something to be said for all of that ancient tradition that still comprises the church today and as we looked into her tired eyes and more shopworn face, we had to come to the conclusion that we agreed with her. We simply replied that the Catholic church did not need to give up its long held traditions and that all change was surely not progress after all.
We came to realize that day the great comfort that some things have in the lives of those who have lost so much but who still have so much faith that they cling to like a life preserver against the sometimes cruel storms of life.
It was the next noon that we were at home when a gentle reminder came into our consciousness that there was to be a Lenten service at an area church that we might want to attend. Because of our schedule it would be the only one in the entire Lenten season that we might be able to go to at noon. When we got there, a nun that we have come to know and respect was giving what the Catholics like to call the homily. Her short sermon was based around the concept of mercy, which we could all use a little more of most of the time. At the luncheon afterwards, she gave us a religious pen and we told her just how much we were praying that her church might select the right person to be their new leader. As we think about it now, the Catholic pope is, in reality, the leader of the entire Christian faith because no other component of it has anyone like him. So, we were praying for the entire faith when we prayed that this selection might go well.
Then the white smoke came later in the day and we found out who would figuratively lead us all through the coming decade or so. As we discovered this new Latin American person with deep European ties we almost came to tears when we saw the film of him asking for the prayers of the faithful for him before he gave his traditional prayer as the new vicar of Rome. This simple man had eschewed the elaborate robes that the pontiff usually wears and appeared in only his simple white adornments as he faced a crowd of one hundred and fifty thousand who faithfully awaited him with so much hope in their eyes in the gently falling rain of Rome.
We found out that this man uses public transportation and lives in a small apartment in Argentina where he was the Cardinal and has a great concern and empathy for the poor. We also learned that he has washed the feet of AIDS patients as part of his ministry to those of great need. And we learned that he cooks his own meals and had cared for an elderly soul in his apartment as part of his ministry. And, we learned that he had taken the name of Francis in honor to the great church leader St. Francis of Assisi. No one had ever been brave enough to do anything like that before. So, this seventy six year old man with one lung since childhood stands before us now and has already exuded so much hope.
We remember John Kennedy standing staring across the Berlin wall during his brief presidency and making the statement, in German, that he too was a Berliner to a people who were, at that time, so separated by politics and circumstance, from one another. And we felt so ecumenical and Catholic at the same time last night at the prospect of this new pope.
And we feel as if a prayer has been answered, a miracle has occurred, and the future looks just slightly brighter as this new day dawns.
IOVHO,
Regards,
Joe
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