Frank Regan reviews Morning Homilies by Pope Francis, translated by Dinah Livingstone
Orbis Books (New York, 3 vols 2015‐2016). £11.99 each.
In the 2000 year history of the Catholic Church Popes come and Popes go. Most are forgotten. A few are still remembered, not always with thanks. The present Pope just might be gratefully remembered. Pope Francis came as a breath of fresh antipodal air. He was from ‘beyond’, from a land which used to be ‘mission territory’
One of Francis’s most salient characteristics is his informality. His airplane interviews keep journalists attentive, keep Vatican spin doctors repackaging his ‘dropkicked’ one-liners and keep the guardians of orthodoxy making their little lists.
His informality shines out in his homilies, of which we have a generous collection here in three volumes. They are not the exact texts. Rather they are related, with substantial quotations, by a reporter, Inos Biffi, of L’Osservatore Romano. Biffi tells us that a homily is a Christian literary form which seeks by its informal and friendly manner to communicate a central insight or teaching from a Gospel reading. It is low in pitch, warm in tone and pastoral in its focus. It is brief, wise, experiential and funny – though humour does not translate easily. Dinah Livingstone gives us an able translation, smooth and idiomatic.
The homilies are short informal chats designed to help Christians to get on with life, question their attitudes, flaws and defects, give witness of the God whom Francis has come to know and encourage listeners to be attentive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. It is surely significant that the first Mass and homily recorded is one to which the Vatican gardeners and waste collectors were invited. Francis wants to change the physiognomy of the Church so that it reflects the poor to whom Christ addressed his warmest words.
Central to the pastoral outlook of the Pope is the triple theme of peace, love and joy. They imbue the three volumes and are experienced and lived through the ministry and grace of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit too is a conspicuous presence in Francis’s homilies. He refers to her constantly. The Spirit gives the gift of peace but not as the world gives. Peace is living in the fullness of God’s grace and blessing. That gift is wrapped in the love which comes from the Spirit, a love which drives towards self-giving and kenotic self-outpouring. That brings joy, the very first sign of God’s presence. That joy cannot be taken away, even in the most painful of circumstances. To live in joy, peace and love is to live the life of God.
The model of living in God’s Spirit is Jesus himself. Francis points to three doors to open in order to find the way to the truth and the life. Those doors are prayer, celebration and imitation. To know Jesus we need prayer, the prayer of humility and gentleness (two virtues highly esteemed by Francis). Also necessary is celebration, as we do in the sacraments, which plunge us into the mystery of God through Christ the Sacrament who forgives, who strengthens, who nourishes, who welcomes us. Finally we live by imitating Christ. We model our lives on his. We adopt his attitudes and mindset, we struggle and pray as he did and we carry our cross, our reality, as he did.
Francis’s homilies reveal an attitude of mind which says that all belong to the Church, especially the poor and those in need of God’s mercy and compassion. But there are others whose belonging is ambiguous. They are LBGTQ persons; women with vocations to ministry and leadership; divorced and remarried Catholics; former clergy and religious and others. He makes no specific mention of them in any of his homilies.
Many, me included, are post-Catholic. They relate to the Church in only the most tenuous fashion. They will always be Catholic. Their Catholicism is instinctive, visceral and chromosomal. Francis wants a different Church whose métier is mercy and compassion. He will have to overcome the many obstacles which a pharisaic establishment will place in his way. The foundation is Christ who welcomed all. The pillars to be raised upon the foundation include women, sexual minorities and alienated Catholics in impossible situations. Francis’s homilies point to a different way of being Church. Reading and meditating upon them will open us to a different mindset and a way of being Church for the life of the world.
Frank Regan is the former long‐time editor of Renew (Catholics for a Changing Church). The British distributor for Orbis Books is Alban Books, 14 Belford Road, Edinburgh, EH4 3BL, UK. (Tel. 0131 226 2217 )