“The Joy of the Gospel”
November 23, 2014
10 AM Liturgy
J.A. Loftus, S.J.
As most of you know by now—or should know by now—today
at 2 PM we are launching a five month invitation to the entire
parish to read together Pope Francis’ first Apostolic Exhortation,
Evangelii Gaudium, the Joy of the Gospel.
We are also celebrating today the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus
Christ, King of the Universe. That celebration presents us with
some of the most strangely beautiful and compelling images in the
scriptures about the kind of kingdom and king we remember
today. The king is a shepherd who most certainly has the smell of
the sheep (Ezekiel). The king is a ruler who subjects all creation
and death itself to God’s reign (Paul). The king is a judge who
discerns and separates sheep from goats at the Last Judgment on
the basis of how much each has loved in very concrete and simple
ways.
We might as well talk about a contemporary shepherd we are
all coming to know in our own midst, one who unites in his flesh
both of today’s celebrations. I am speaking, of course, of Pope
Francis himself. So I will.
Why so many people around the world, from so many
different religious traditions, or even from people with no
religious affiliation, why have so many been so moved by Pope
Francis and by his Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium?
Scientists have a research phrase they use to describe certain
“biases” we all have when judging events or people. They call it
“Confirmation Bias.” Let’s listen to one of the original philosophers
of science, Francis Bacon, who once said way back in the 16th
century: “It is the peculiar and perpetual error of human
understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than
by negatives.”
This is a perfect summary of “Confirmation bias.” We find
ourselves excited by information that confirms our beliefs, while
brushing aside information that does not coincide with what we
really hold dear in our hearts. It creates a kind of bias that infects
some science to this day. And it may also infect theologies and
spiritualties.
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But I think some kind of “confirmation bias” accounts for why
so many people have been so moved by Francis, the Bishop of
Rome.
I suggest to you that psychological perspectives may actually
explain more about the so-called “Francis Effect” sweeping the
world than theological perspectives. People in our church either
lament or cheer the fact that there have been no shifts of
theological import coming out of Rome for the past year-and-a-half.
But there have been enormous psychological consequences felt
around the globe.
Joy, and Mercy, and Forgiveness are what most of us have
long held in our hearts as the real Gospel of Jesus Christ. God
knows that those qualities were not what most of us learned
growing up. But they were still in our hearts—perhaps in a quiet
place, perhaps the place where God dwells.
What Francis has done is to make it possible for those hopes
and dreams to come out of their very personal and profound
closets. It cannot be an accident that Francis chose the phrase
Evangelii Gaudium for his title. Fifty years ago, another document,
one of the most significant of the Second Vatican Council was titled
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Gaudium et Spes, Joy and Hope. It is the title of the Pastoral
Constitution on the Church in the Modern World.
Listen again to its opening words: “The joys and the hopes,
the griefs and the anxieties of the people of this age, especially
those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and
hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ. Indeed,
nothing genuinely human fails to raise an echo in their hearts.”
Pope Francis is a true son of that Council and is trying to
return the church to that foundational shift of tone and pastoral
centrality. But Francis writes in the very beginning of the Joy of the
Gospel, “I am aware that nowadays documents do not arose the
same interest as in the past and they are quickly forgotten” (#25).
So like his namesake, Francis of Assisi, this Francis preaches the
Gospel in deeds, and uses words only when necessary.
He mirrors for all of us a man of great joy, and remarkable
inner freedom. He has turned on the “mirror neurons” in a billion
brains. And he just smiles at the power of his God to transform and
give hope again to all who are thirsty, to all who still hunger for
peace, for justice, for a sense of a still living God. His simple and
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sparse use of words is accessible to all (how unusual is that for a
Papal document?).
It is the same freshness, the same breeze, that Pope St. John
nurtured when he suggested throwing open the windows of the
church fifty years ago. Listen to Francis fifty years later. “Pastoral
ministry in a missionary key seeks to abandon the complacent
attitude that says ‘We have always done it this way.’” “I invite
everyone to be bold and creative in this task of rethinking the
goals, structures, style and methods of evangelization in their
respective communities” (#33).
Let’s keep listening for a minute. “ Pastoral ministry in a
missionary style is not obsessed with the disjointed transmission
of a multitude of doctrines to be insistently imposed…. The
message is simplified, while losing none of its depth and truth, and
thus becomes all the more forceful and convincing.”
And so we have, in addition to this text, all those marvelous
photos of an almost constantly smiling Pope who really does enjoy
himself—not always seen in a Papal visage. He dons a clown nose
for a newly wed couple of clowns. He laughs out loud with the look
of a 12 year old catching a foul ball at Fenway when he is thrown a
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baseball in the Pope mobile. And he fills with tears as he embraces
horribly disfigured men or washes the feet of adolescent convicts.
The Joy of the Gospel is not just a book. The Joy of the Gospel
is a person enjoying his role as Bishop of Rome. And someone
inviting all of us to discover again the hopes and dreams of a life in
love.
That impulse is there in all of us. Francis counts on that.
That is God’s gift to every human being. The book is just another
introduction to the dream. Think of the book as kindling for a
long-dimmed blaze igniting again in hearts all over the world.
An image from last weekend has stayed with me all week as I
prepared these remarks. I’m sure you all remember the
remarkable achievement of the European Space Agency. Last week
they landed a refrigerator-sized space ship on a moving comet.
The ship was travelling at about 36,000 miles per hour and the
comet, 67P, was about 300,000 miles from earth (give or take a few
thousand).
It was a bumpy landing and bounced off the surface several
times before settling down finally. It took them ten years to plan
and deliver their ship to the comet. And after all that, the ship
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finally came to rest in the shadow of a cliff. And it is solar powered.
There was no sun and it stopped sending signals back to earth.
Who could have thunk? All that work, for this ending!
Think for a moment of the Second Vatican Council. It too
faced almost bizarre obstacles turning around a huge bark of
Peter. It, too, had a bumpy landing, and seemed, to some at least, to
grow dimmer and dimmer as years passed. But like the Space
Agency, Pope Francis will continue to bounce the solar panels back
into the sunshine. That’s what he is doing in my strange
imagination. He, too, has a positive confirmation bias. It’s in his
smile and laughter. The hopes and joy of the Gospel belong to all.
Thinking again of good old Francis Bacon, having a positive
confirmation bias may not so bad after all. Pope Francis the man,
and Pope Francis the author, is just inviting us into a space in
which each heart already knows, “This is right!”
Christ the King of the universe indeed! Enjoy the book. Enjoy
even more the man. Enjoy the delight, the thrill that is life in Christ
Jesus. It is supposed to be thrilling! That’s the take-home for me,
and for all of us today. See you at 2 o’clock.
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