Vatican City, Jun 30, 2020 / 08:40 pm (CNA).- Last Saturday, June 27, many churches witnessed the ordinations of dozens of priests and deacons, in ceremonies that were far from typical. Even while some parts of the world “reopen” after the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, social distancing was required, and cameras provided live streaming so that family, friends and loved ones could participate by TV, tablet or smartphone.
On this occasion, I had the joy and honour of ordaining, in the Gesù Church in Rome, two Jesuit priests and eighteen deacons from all over the world—from Italy, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Ukraine, and Austria to Rwanda-Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, China, Bangladesh and India—wearing masks and connecting online with parents, relatives, friends and fellow Jesuits. Physical presence was not possible as Italy slowly recovers from this health crisis; the borders are still closed and travel restrictions are still in place.
The following reflections expand upon the homily I pronounced just before the ordination of these twenty candidates for the priesthood and the diaconate.
Breath of life
As a priest or deacon “to be”, you may feel a bit incomplete because you cannot share this very important moment with your loved ones. You might feel anxious, too: we’re living in the unknown and in unchartered territories for the Church, for all of us. And as you prepare yourself for ordination, you might ask: what does this mean for me, right now and right here?
Perhaps the answer can be found on Easter evening, when the apostles had locked themselves into the upper room for fear of what was happening “outside”. (Even nowadays, our Church sometimes feels fearful and closed in on itself.) Suddenly Jesus becomes visible, audible, tangible among them. “Shalom!” is his first word, “Peace be with you!” He shows them his wounded hands and pierced side. These permanent signs of his Passion proclaim and prove God’s tenacious love. And then, amazingly, Jesus sends them out into the same world they were so afraid of.
How does he do this? With this tremendous gesture: he breathes on them. Just like in the beginning: God breathed his breath of life into Adam. By breathing on his disciples and giving them his Spirit, Jesus lifts them to a new order. That is, he ordains them as heralds of the Gospel “to the ends of the earth”, as it says in the book of Acts.
You are about to receive this deep and generous and transforming breath of life, the Spirit of the Father and the Son. You will be able to say, repeating Isaiah, “the spirit of the Lord is upon me”, to heal and to comfort, to liberate and to reconcile, to raise up and make glad. And to be a herald of the Gospel, a minister of reconciliation and of liberation, in the world of today and tomorrow, where everything seems to be constantly and rapidly new.
With your ordination just moments away, let me remind you that we are all witnessing a bigger moment now, where the whole Church and your family and friends, are encouraging you to choose the uphill path of the “new” rather than the downhill path of the “safe”.
Renewal is nothing new
Our Church has a long history and, from the beginning, it has coped with new conditions, for instance through its Councils. Vatican II proclaimed that the Church must consciously embrace the world. We must discern and “scrutinize the signs of the times”. But while discernment is part of the Jesuit life, style and training, it is not exclusively Jesuit property, nor is it a prerogative of the ordained.
Why is this so? Because of baptism. According to Vatican II, every member of the Church enjoys the dignity of having been baptized and therefore shares in the mission and ministry of the Church. Ordained ministry does not exhaust or monopolize this ministry, for it is the Church as a whole that is “ministerial” and “missionary”. All its members share in that responsibility. This expands the role of the laity — a work in progress, according to many engaged Christians. Today’s ministers are ordained to foster the active inclusion of God’s people in the life, mission and responsibilities of the Church.
Vatican II embraces the world as the privileged place of announcing the Good News. In doing so, it restores its priests to the world, inviting them to leave the comfort zones called “sacristies” where, like the disciples on the first Easter evening, they had been shut in for fear of what was happening “outside”. Now the world, with its problems and struggles, with its contradictions and its values, with its opportunities and obstacles, is essential to the service of those who will be ordained today.
The courage of witness
Do not expect a map of the unknown land ahead to which you are being sent. It is a daunting prospect to enter uncharted territories. As I said earlier, ministers of the Church need to have the courage of witness, to choose the uphill path of the “new” and not to take the downhill path of the “safe”. May you always have friends and family and companions in the Church to constantly ‘en-courage’ you, even if they can only be with you in spirit.
Keep in mind that discerning the meaning of Christ’s call to us today is a task of the whole Church, not of a chosen few. Don’t try to dominate or own this discernment; instead, accompany others and put yourselves at the service of the discernment of the whole Church.
In doing so, you will be participating in the synodal practice that is gradually growing in the Church. Let us try to walk together with ever greater enthusiasm. Your huge contribution depends on looking honestly and listening sincerely, without thinking that you already have the best answer or all the answers. Try to draw on many people and listen to many voices. However small or large your network is, you will find that it requires both humility and courage to recognize that one cannot do everything on one’s own.
Don’t expect it to be easy, don’t expect it to be without controversy, don’t expect to be rewarded, don’t expect to be liked by others, don’t expect that the critics will acknowledge your difficult struggles, don’t expect quick success. But be confident that you won’t be alone if you let others walk with you.
This is something to pray for, today and always. Ask God to help us see the world as Jesus does, especially in this very difficult time.
The Covid-19 pandemic is showing us the complexity and contradictions of our social and economic systems, where the gap between wealth and poverty is growing out of all proportion, and where so many feel abandoned and thrown away, excluded and unwanted.
Would Jesus not weep for the refugees and migrants who do not receive medical attention because they are “foreigners”, many of them crowded into irregular settlements, who have lost what little they already had and live today in despair? Would Jesus not see the indigenous peoples who are discriminated against for food aid, the prisoners who have been abandoned to the mercies of the virus, and the more than 3 billion poor people worldwide?
I cannot imagine Jesus waiting in an upper room or a sacristy; he would urge us to join him in the margins of the margins, where the courage of life and hope is most needed.
May we enlighten the world with the truth of the Gospel, and propose effective and genial solutions, not just to the present emergency, but to the enormous sufferings of God’s people and of our common home.
Pope Francis speaks often of joy: “The Joy of the Gospel” (Evangelii gaudium) and “Rejoice and be Glad” (Gaudete et exsultate) and “The Joy of Love” (Amoris laetitia). May you experience abundant grace, consolation and joy in carrying out the charge that you are about to accept in your ordination. Peace be with you!
Cardinal Michael Czerny, as a member of the Jesuit community, has worked in Canada, Latin America, Africa, and Rome, in the service of faith and the promotion of justice. Since 2017, he has been Under-Secretary of the Vatican’s Migrants and Refugees Section. In 2019 Pope Francis elevated him to cardinal. Card. Czerny is also a member of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
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We read: “He also calls for avoiding the ‘merely chronological approach’ to the history of the Church, which ‘would transform the history of the Church into a mere buttress for the history of theology or spirituality of past centuries’.”
Yes, beware the linear periodization of history, as with Joachim de Fiore who proposed three eras (the Old Testament age of the Father, the next age of Jesus Christ, and the third age of the Holy Spirit, beginning in A.D. 1260. Beware the later periodization of August Comte, founder of sociology, who discerned a a theological age, displaced by an age of metaphysics, and then by an age of science and positivism. Or, maybe the specifically periodized history of the Church with an apostolic age, then the age of councils, and now the age of inclusive synodality…
In lesser hands, will Pope Francis’ valid message about non-ideological history be dished out by others as contextualizing the Council of Nicaea, and even the doctrinal Creed, as somewhat of a period piece? Now to be left behind by the finally pastoral age of (Joachim’s!) Holy Spirit, the laity, and permanent synodality? Will we be tutored that Arianism was not really rejected (non-inclusivity!), but just put on hold until a more enlightened and self-referentially non-ideological era…
C.S. Lewis’s “chronological snobbery” in a red hat?
I say: “Make the Papacy Catholic Again.”
When has the Orwellian mind of Francis not disparaged and trivialized anything authentically Catholic as “ideology” while not praising anti-religious secular ideologies as sources of wisdom?
“No one can truly know their deepest identity, or what they wish to be in the future, without attending to the bonds that link them to preceding generations,” suggests our essential identity is not inherent within our nature, rather it’s formed by history.
Sans ideology corresponds to time is greater than space ideology, that it’s not the theological value of decisions made during crises and councils called to correct and clarify dogma. He’s suggesting in effect that the present moment may cancel out previous decisions on doctrinal matters, to wit, that doctrinal permanence is a deficient ideology.
Historical and sociological determinism has long replaced philosophy and religion in academia. And a pope who is an ambassador of the world to the Church rather than a defender of the Church from the world is not about to even consider asking the right questions.
I pray it’s a translation issue, but most of the time I honestly don’t understand what the heck Francis is talking about. Word salads and church jargon.
Pope Francis calls for study of Church history free from ideologies. Umm 🤨 🧐
God’s Fool calls for commentary free from foolishness! 💋
Not sure if Pope Francis actually wrote this. More importantly, can’t tell to whom it is addressed. It seems to want to correct problems with historicism but itself involves historicist patterning.
It is about Church history but there is no mention of the Holy Spirit.
It can’t be considered universal; and yet while it is right to emphasize the importance of particulars, in any approach to history, it gives no proper foundational truths or leads about that.
Diachrony and synchrony relate with language and linguistics through times and in moments. They both have a valid place in analyzing and understanding what is communicated.
Both of these two contain a) things sustained, b) things left behind and and c) things ambivalent and the letter fails to bring out (among other things) these characteristics related to ecclesiology or just people and culture in general.
The letter is imbued with positivism: diachrony, whether thought of as “three dimensional” or “polyhedron”, does not automatically assure of being led into any truthful reality nor itself provide a measure or yardstick.
The word “fact” is deployed in purely negative and reflexive a-historical sense.
Members of the Lodge often assert their own interpretations of Scripture by rooting hard on factuals taken out of all context including Redemption; and the letter seems to uphold this or carry it forward as authentic.
The 20th Century is marked by Modernist positivism, determinism and relativism and what seems to be morphing in our time is Modernist neutralism and syncretism. But no mention!
I have pinpointed at least a further 13 other objectionable standpoints in the letter adding to those here and what is mentioned by Fr. and Beaulieu.
I am sorry to criticize the Holy Father. I have no way to reach him in person about that so as to avoid the situation of Ham. THIS is a problem and it is not solved by allowing parrhesia!
Who is advising him? In the past 8 days or so he is lamenting war while entertaining children and Czech survivors “neutrally” and signing Burbon bottles, as Parolin avers “openly confess China ad experimentum!”
The letter seems to stake out a separation from wrongs already done yet still repeating wrong.
This prolific pontificate seems to fulfill the wish of the nineteenth century William George Ward to have a new papal Bull for breakfast every morning. While this “Letter” rightly addresses the sad ignorance of history in contemporary culture, classical Formgeschichte might detect in its opaque inferences and rhetoric, the influence of Hegel and Derrida and Kamala Harris.