'A Franciscan Pontificate'

Pope Francis washing the feet of

inmates at Casal del Marmo prison

`A Franciscan Pontificate’

13^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 30, 2013
I Kings 19:19-21          Galatians 5:1,13-18          Luke 9:51-62

1^st reading: Following Elijah

Elijah set out and came upon Elisha, plowing with a team of oxen; there were eleven teams ahead of him, and he was plowing with the last one. Elijah took off his cloak and put it on Elisha. Elisha then left his oxen, and ran after Elijah, and said, “Please, let me kiss my father and mother goodbye, and then I will follow you.” Elijah answered, “Go on, but come back, because what I have just done to you is important.” Then Elisha went to his team of oxen, killed them, and cooked the meat, using the yoke as fuel for the fire. Then Elisha left and followed Elijah as his helper.

The Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

Alleluia, alleluia

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Luke

Glory to you, Lord.

 

Following Jesus

As the time drew near for his return to heaven, Jesus set his face firmly towards Jerusalem. And He sent messengers ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get everything ready for Him. But the villagers would not receive Him because He was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this they asked, “Master, do you want us to call down fire from heaven and destroy them?”But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went on to another village.

 As they went on their way a certain man said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus answered him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lie down and rest.”

And to another man He said, “Follow me.” But that man replied, “Lord, I will follow you, but first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus answered, “Let the dead bury their dead. You go and preach the Kingdom of God.”

Another man said, “I will follow you, sir, but first let me say farewell to my family at home.” Jesus said to him, “Anyone who starts to plow and then keeps looking back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

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Introduction

The 4^th of July

This coming Thursday is the 4^th of July and Independence Day. That national holiday celebrates the historic event when the 13 original colonies declared their independence from Great Britain. On July 4, 1776 the Continental Congress adopted the historic document drafted by Thomas Jefferson: The Declaration of Independence. On the 4^th of July the Nation will celebrate its independence with fireworks, parades, barbecues, picnics in parks, concerts, baseball games and family reunions.

Jews and Samaritans

When Jesus - a Jew - sent messengers ahead to a Samaritan village to get everything ready for Him, the messengers were turned away. Samaritans (who lived in a region called Samaria) despised Jews who looked down on them as half-breeds and heretics. And Jews in turn despised Samaritans who worshiped God on Mt. Gerizim in Samaria, while Jews maintained that the only `right place’ to worship God was in the Temple in Jerusalem. (Jn. 4:20) No wonder then when Jesus sent messengers ahead to reserve rooms for Him and his disciples in a Samaritan village, they were turned away.

Costly discipleship  

Discipleship - the following Jesus - is costly. It asks us to follow “the Son of Man who has nowhere to lie down and rest.” It directs us to “let the dead bury their dead.” It warns us that “whoever sets his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), a German Lutheran minister and theologian , put to death by Hitler in 1945, is known especially for his book entitled The Cost of Discipleship. The context of that book was the Evangelical Church of Germany in the 1920s, 30s and 40s; it was during that Church’s watch that the inconceivable horrors of the Holocaust were spawned, thrived and went unchallenged.

No wonder then that the very first line of Bonhoeffer’s book should read: “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church; we are fighting today for costly grace.” By` cheap grace’ he meant the sacraments and the consolations of religion given away at `cut prices.’ By cheap grace he meant the conferral of absolution without requiring costly repentance; the bestowal of baptism without requiring costly commitment; the reception of Communion without requiring costly bread-breaking. By cheap grace he meant `discipleship’ that doesn’t cost the church institution or its members one red cent. But by `costly grace,’ however, he meant discipleship which makes costly demands both on the church institution and its members.

`Farming out’ discipleship

It’s natural to dismiss costly discipleship as unrealistic or to water it down to size, or to simply `farm it out’ to others. In his book Bonhoeffer makes an interesting observation which gives Catholics pause. The Roman Church, he writes, felt uneasy about dismissing the call to discipleship as unrealistic or about simply watering it down. So Rome came up with a creative and clever solution: it `farmed out’ discipleship. It entrusted the following of Jesus – holiness of life - to a few chosen specialists in the Church: monks and nuns! To them the Roman Church could point and say, “Look at these heroes of mine! In them I have obeyed Jesus’ call to discipleship.” That creative solution, Bonhoeffer contended, created a double standard in the Roman Church: a maximum one for a few chosen monks and nuns, and a minimum one for the rest of God’s people. But discipleship, he maintained, “is not the achievement or merit of a chosen few people but is a divine command to all Christians without distinction.”

 

Catching up to Bonhoeffer

In Vatican II the Church caught up to Bonhoeffer’s contention that discipleship is a divine command not just to a chosen few but to all Christians. In its stellar document Lumen Gentium, the Council carved out a special chapter entitled The Call of the Whole Church to Holiness [discipleship], and purposely placed it immediately before a chapter entitled Religious (monks and nuns). In that special chapter the Council states, ”The Lord Jesus, the divine Teacher and Model of all perfection, preached holiness of life [discipleship] to each and every one of his disciples, regardless of their situation. “ (Lumen Gentium, art . 40) That put an end, at least on paper, to the Church’s `farming out’ discipleship and holiness to a chosen few.

John revives foot-washing.

Good Pope John didn’t farm out discipleship; rather he practiced what he preached. On the day of his `coronation’ November 4, 1958, he said in his homily that he had in mind for his pontificate the example of the Good Shepherd who came not to be served but to serve. On the very next day after his `coronation’ he went forth to practice what he preached. John sped off through elaborate Vatican gates to serve. He visited aging brother priests in nursing homes. He visited inmates in the nearby Regina Coeli Prison along the Tiber.  “I come to you because you couldn’t come to me,” he told them. When he celebrated his first Holy Thursday as pope on March 26, 1959, he revived an ancient custom of the Church which had fallen into disuse for many centuries:: like Jesus John girded himself with a towel and bent down to wash the feet of 13 young priests.  That was a very new experience for the church institution which had  become very adept at serving itself

Francis washes the feet of the ` right people.’

Neither does Good Pope Francis farm out discipleship; he practices what he preaches. When Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope and chose the name of Francis, he was connecting himself with the world famous 13^th century Saint Francis of Assisi. From the very first minute of his election, Francis chose a new style, unlike his predecessor: no miter with gold and jewels, no ermine-trimmed cape, no made-to-measure red shoes and headwear, no magnificent throne.

Then on his first Holy Thursday as pope, Francis went to the Casal del Marmo prison, a juvenile detention center outside of Rome. There he washed and kissed the foot of a Muslim! Worse than that, he washed and kissed the foot of two young women! That was indeed a very surprising and significant departure from tradition, which restricts the Holy Thursday ritual to males only. No pope has ever washed the feet of a woman before, and Francis' gesture sparked a debate among some conservatives and liturgical purists, who felt he had set a "very questionable example." Liberals, however, felt that Francis had washed the feet of the `right people,’ and they welcomed that as a promising sign.

Francis also washes feet in the `right place.’

Kneeling on the stone floor of the Casal del Marmo prison before 12 young people, the 76-year-old Francis poured water over each foot, dried it with a simple cotton towel, and then bent over to kiss each foot. Some said the Casal del Marmo prison was the `wrong place’ for the foot-washing ritual of Holy Thursday; previous popes always held that ritual in the church of St. John Lateran – the cathedral church of the Bishop of  Rome – the Pope. Others said that Casal del Marmo prison was indeed the `right place’ for the ritual foot-washing.

When John XXIII celebrated his first Holy Thursday as pope on March 26, 1959 he revived an ancient custom of the Church which had fallen into disuse for many centuries: like Jesus John girded himself with a towel and bent down to wash the feet of 13 young priests. And he did the foot-washing in the lofty basilica of St. John Lateran. When Pope Francis celebrated his first Holy Thursday as pope he went even further: he washed the feet of 12 people, two of whom were women! And he did it not in some lofty basilica but in Casal del Marmo prison! That was simply a continuation of his style as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, when he would celebrate the Holy Thursday foot-washing ritual in jails, hospitals or hospices.

Conclusion

`A Franciscan Pontificate’

On Holy Thursday Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of the `right people’ in that juvenile detention center outside of Rome. He also did the foot-washing and foot-kissing of Holy Thursday in the `right place’ – not in John Lateran Basilica (the Pope’s cathedral) but in Casal del Marmo prison. Pope Francis stunned traditionalists by washing and kissing the feet of the `wrong people’ ( a Muslim and two young women) and in the `wrong place’ (a detention center). And that, indeed, is a good sign that ` a Franciscan pontificate’ is dawning upon the Church.