A Humble Pope for a Humble Church

Just before Easter this year we were all shocked by the resignation of Pope Benedict. We were more shocked when, a few weeks later, an Argentinian Cardinal was elected Pope and appeared in front of St Peter’s Square without much of the usual ceremony. He asked us to pray from him and to bless him…. This was usually the other way around. The next day he went and paid his hotel bill and rang the local paper shop in Buenos Aries to cancel the daily paper delivery. After that he started to walk around the Vatican, telling an aid, ”If you think I am getting into that car to drive 200m you are wrong!”  The more cynical among us, which sometimes I think is most of us, advised to wait and see… it will all wash off and then he will be more regal.  Eventually he will get into the groove of being Pope. But that has not happened. He still has not moved into the Apostolic Palace, he still shocks people with his openness and simplicity. Even last week he rang a woman in Argentina who had been brutally assaulted.

There is something very deep happening here. 

This is humility in action.

The gospel seems to paint humility as merely putting ourselves down. Others are pushed forward with comforting words while inside we are proud, feeling good for taking the lower place. That is the opposite of humility. On a closer reading of Luke, the word for humility that he uses translated as ‘lowly mindedness’. We need to know that the world does not revolve around us. Yes, we are a part of it, and some of us are called to play significant parts, like Pope Francis, but never alone. It is never just about us, and those who think that it is will eventually be brought low. So Jesus tells us, when you come to a banquet, be real, don’t go to the front, but on the other hand, don’t grovel to the bottom. Instead, quietly go about your business and don’t make a fuss and take a lowly seat, knowing that you are part of something much bigger than yourself. With this knowledge we won’t have tickets on ourselves or delude ourselves. Pope Francis makes no fuss, he just does him job and lives his life, and teaches us constantly.

Pride is the deadliest of the seven deadly sins, while humility is perhaps the most characteristic of Christian virtues. The humble person finds “favour in the sight of the Lord,” not because that favour is a reward for humility, but because humility, like faith, means abandoning self-assertion, all trust in one’s own righteousness, and allowing God to act where we can do nothing. (Reginald Fuller).

My sisters went to the Brigidine Convent up the road from where we grew up in Randwick, Sydney. I always looked with amusement at their school bags which had their school motto: Fortiter et Suaviter, (Strength and Gentleness), plastered across them. My ten year old mind could not cope with the fact that these two qualities could co-exist. I was to learn as I grew that they could not only co-exist, but must co-exist if we are to thrive. Only with true humility can we be strong and gentle at the same time. Our Holy Father Francis continues to be wildly popular because he is real, he is humble and it is all blindingly obvious to even the most cynical in our society. He believes what is taught by the sage in Ecclesiasticus’ that love is experienced in giving, rather than receiving; that greatness is revealed in humility; that wisdom is a better listener than talker.

This week, our society places two great examples in front of us which need to be approached with humility.

In next week’s Federal Election we are called to put aside our self-interest and look at the needs of our country. It is not about us and our pay packet or minor issues. It is about our country and the extent we make assist to making it a place where the vulnerable and needy find protection.

Child Protection Week is our opportunity to recognise and reaffirm our role in the protection and support of the vulnerable in our community. The truly humble to not take advantage of others and do not fail to protect and love our children. This is a responsibility of many on our society. It is a failing of our institutions and our families. Last week the Royal Commission visited the Kimberley to seek ways forward to protecting children in the future by honest and humble recognition of what has occurred in the past. Only a humble society, a humble church and humble families will be able to protect children now and in the future.

Homily for 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, 1st September 2013, OLQP Broome.