Remembering Pope Francis
On Monday mornings, we pray the Office of Readings and Morning Prayer before morning Mass at our parish church. It’s my job usually to unlock the door and turn on the lights. This morning, I grabbed my phone to make sure there was indeed Mass on this Easter Monday morning. On my phone screen, I saw a text from a neighbor that Pope Francis had died.
I checked the internet to make sure–and sure enough, saw the obituaries popping up online. Paul’s electric words to the Romans, which we read at the Easter Vigil just two nights before, sprang to my mind:
“If, then, we have died with Christ,
we believe that we shall also live with him.”
What words could better encapsulate the mystery of the death of a servant of the servants of God, shepherd to the Risen Body of Christ on earth than the words we have been passing down for the two millennia years since Paul wrote his letter?
“Pope Francis believed in the Resurrection,” our pastor said in his homily this morning. Our pastor spoke about Pope Francis’ recent autobiography, “Hope” and how the hope of a Christian, Pope Francis reiterates, is grounded in Christ’s Resurrection. The hope of Resurrection makes possible a commitment to peace rather than the fear of war; it makes possible our refusal to close our hearts, our churches, or our borders to those suffering and in need, and it gives us the courage to preach the good news, like Mary Magdalene, the Apostle to the Apostles, whom Pope Francis so loved.
Pope Francis wrote a final Urbi et Orbi message, read by a Cardinal on Easter Sunday, and he continued, like Mary Magdalene to preach the good news: to pray and intercede for his suffering flock throughout the world: in Ukraine, Armenia, Myanmar, Gaza, Lebanon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and for prisoners–particularly political prisoners. He wrote:
“In the Lord’s Paschal Mystery, death and life contended in a stupendous struggle, but the Lord now lives forever (cf. Easter Sequence). He fills us with the certainty that we too are called to share in the life that knows no end, when the clash of arms and the rumble of death will be heard no more. Let us entrust ourselves to him, for he alone can make all things new (cf. Rev. 21:5)!”
May Pope Francis experience the joy of Easter in a new way now that he has completed the pilgrimage of this life. Christ is risen, alleluia alleluia.
Renee Roden is the Vice President of the board of The Catholic Artist Connection. She lives at St. Francis Catholic Worker House in Chicago.