(Readings for Saturday 26th April: Acts 4:13-21; Ps 117:1, 14-21; Mark 16:9-15)
There have been many – and no doubt will be more – views and versions of what was the vision of Pope Francis. For many – perhaps a majority – this will be mercy, mindful of the opening two lines of his inauguration of the Extraordinary Year of Mercy ten years ago – ‘Jesus Christ is the face of the Father’s mercy. These words might well sum up the mystery of the Christian faith’. The central symbol of the papacy of Francis was the Good Samaritan, the compassionate figure whom he constantly referred and had recourse to, reminding all the faithful of the final words of Jesus in the parable, ‘Go and do likewise’ (Luke 10:37). Indeed, mercy was the moral-pastoral principle that he adopted, acted and advocated throughout his travels and teaching.
Spiritually Hope was his signature which he signed off with, dying during the Jubilee Year which he inaugurated with the title taken from Saint Paul, ‘Hope does not disappoint’ (Romans 5:5). He begins ‘In the spirit of hope’, bearing the blessing ‘To all who read this letter may hope fill your hearts’. This spiritual thread runs through to his final Message For World Mission Day in the Jubilee Year 2025, ‘the central message of which is hope’.[1] Francis was an apostle of Hope, going to peoples and places that were off the map of political, economic and cultural significance. Identifying with those on his beloved ‘peripheries’, the poor of the earth and indeed the poor earth itself, he indicated his understanding and undertaking of God’s unbreakable involvement with the world and its salvation in Christ.
Today’s two readings – in particular their endings – offer a theological take on the mission of Francis’ papacy. The first reading – from Acts of the Apostles – ends with the statement that ‘all the people were giving glory to God for what had happened’ (4:21). As a Jesuit Francis was devoted to the motto Ad maiorem Dei gloriam – ‘to the greater glory of God’. The church dare not forget God at the expense of focusing exclusively on the experience of the disciples, especially in Easter time. Without God who raised Jesus from the dead there is a danger of self-glorification. In his commentary on the Gospel of John Raymond Brown divided it into two parts, calling the second ‘The Book of Glory’, describing it whereby ‘the Word shows his glory by returning to the Father in death, resurrection and ascension. Fully glorified, he communicates the Spirit of life’.[2] To adapt an image from the same Gospel, the ‘seamless garment’ of Jesus was not a shroud but a veil covering his glory, ‘the glory as of an only-begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth’ (1:14). The Father’s glory is the fountain of grace in Christ flowing through the Holy Spirit.
The close of the Gospel reading gives us Jesus’ final communication and commission – ‘And he said to them, “Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation’ (Mark 16:15). From the outset Pope Francis expressed, endorsed and exhorted evangelization, expressly in the opening of his first major document The Joy of the Gospel: ‘In this Exhortation I encourage the Christian faithful to embark upon a new chapter of evangelization marked by this joy, while pointing out new paths for the Church’s journey in years to come’.[3] The double reference to ‘new’ here heralded a hugely significant era of synodality (ongoing) in the church.
Evangelization emerges from and ends in the glory of God. God’s glory is the goal of evangelization. God’s glory is the horizon (an image much loved and used by Francis) of mission. Within this infinite horizon – not a contradiction but a celebration of mystery – Francis focused and formulated the Message For World Mission Day: ‘I have chosen the motto: “Missionaries of Hope Among all Peoples”.
Brother Francis, priest and pastor, prophet and Pope, we commend you to ‘the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation’ (2 Corinthians 1:3) through the Holy Spirit of compassion. Calling to mind your own wise, warm and wonderful way with words – ‘For Christians, the Word is God, and all our human words bear traces of an intrinsic longing for God, a tending towards that Word’[4] – we pray for your final journey, ‘But trailing clouds of glory do we come/From God, who is our home’.[5]
Fr Kevin O’Gorman SMA
[1] Available at www.vatican.va
[2] An Introduction to the New Testament, New York, Doubleday, 1996, 334.
[3] Evangelii Gaudium – The Joy of the Gospel, Dublin, Veritas, 2013, Par. 1.
[4] Letter of His Holiness Pope Francis on the Role of Literature in Formation, 17th July 2024, in The Furrow, 75, October 2024, 566-576, here 572, (par.24).
[5] William Wordsworth, ‘Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood’, in eds. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter and Jon Stallworthy, The Norton Anthology of Poetry (Fifth Edition), New York: W.W.Norton, 2005, 796-801, here 798.