Okay, I admit it: this is weird. I mean, not having a Pope. It is not a catastrophic as, say, if the sun
were to go out, but more like the effect on everyone’s balance if the sun were
to run its course from west to east.
Everything is cast in a different light.
The first day I found myself
Popeless, Friday, March first, was tougher than I had expected. Nothing seemed to have a chance of going
right. I don’t mean that it was hard to leave out his name at Mass during the
Eucharistic Prayer; I was ready for that.
No, I mean there is this sense of being hobbled by missing someone we
need.
As I explained a few weeks ago,
this is not the first time the Church has been Popeless; on the contrary, it
has happened 263 times. We know what to
do, and we are doing it. This is
attracting a lot of attention and speculation, much of it rather…
overheated. People are speaking of this
moment in the Church’s life as if it were cataclysmically critical with peril
on every side and seismic transformation imminent. If that be true, it is not any more true now
than any other time. So I draw to your
attention two things to help you maintain your perspective in the face of
disorienting Popelessness.
First is the Lenten Food Drive in
which we participated last week. You brought
in an extraordinary amount of food to be shared with our local poor through the
Capital Area Food Bank. Early estimates
are that you handily exceed last year’s generous amount. It sure took up a lot of space in the
church! Praise God for your willingness
to care for your brothers and sisters and take seriously the Lenten charge of
almsgiving.
Secondly, Tuesday evening saw the
church filled to overflowing with seventy-eight of young people and their
family and friends, along with a successor to the Apostles, Bishop Martin
Holley, Auxiliary of Washington, who came to confer the Sacrament of
Confirmation. It was a beautiful
evening, full of joy. Personally, I
found great delight and encouragement in seeing Confirmed so many kids whom I
have known literally all their lives. To
see them so seriously attentive to the working of the Spirit was
marvelous. It was also good to see so
many of their family members from near and far.
Many of them I have come to know and recognize over the years.
So, right here in Silver Spring,
you have your evidence that the Church continues to be the Church. Alms are given for the poor, and the Spirit
comes at the invocation of the Apostles: the Body of Christ is alive. The Church does the work of God’s mercy,
turning our hearts and minds back to God in repentance for our selfishness, and
giving what we have to those who have not.
She also brings the life that God alone can give in the Sacraments, reconciling
souls to God, and distributing the very power of God to souls willing to conform
their lives to Him and witness to His Saving work.
So, yes, this is weird. But the cataclysm – that the Church might
cease to be who Church has always been – is not going to happen. She continues to preach Jesus Christ and Him
crucified as the unique hope of salvation.
She continues to teach what is good, and what is evil, and call people
in every circumstance away from sin and toward obedience. She continues to care for the poor, the
lonely, and the sad, and she continues to provide the saving sacraments that
are the presence and activity of the living God for all who crave Him.
So yes, these days are weird. But our Popelessness will change, and soon, and
the Church will not change in her essence any more than will our loving,
constant God Himself.
Monsignor Smith
