The
Face of
Mercy / Daniel Conway
Let’s be seekers and risk-takers on our pilgrimage of faith
(En Espanol)
Pope Francis has consistently challenged baptized Christians to abandon the comforts of home and to set out on a missionary journey to seek and find true happiness and peace. “To seek and to risk,” the Holy Father says, “these are two words that describe the journey of pilgrims. To seek and to risk.”
Not surprisingly, then, in his address to students at the Catholic University of Portugal last August, Pope Francis encouraged his young audience to see themselves as pilgrims on a journey through life that makes them both seekers and risk-takers. As the Holy Father said:
We are always journeying “toward.” We are called to something higher, and we will never be able to soar unless we first take flight. We should not be alarmed, then, if we sense an inner thirst, a restless, unfulfilled longing for meaning and a future, “com saudades do futuro” (looking to the future)!
Paraphrasing St. Augustine’s famous prayer, “Our heart is restless until it rests in you, O Lord,” the pope encouraged his young audience to recognize the true cause of their spiritual seeking and to resist the temptation to find comfort in the empty promises of the evil one.
Indeed, the Holy Father says, “We should only be worried when we are tempted to abandon the road ahead for a resting place that gives the illusion of comfort, or when we find ourselves replacing faces with screens, the real with the virtual, or resting content with easy answers that anesthetize us to painful and disturbing questions.” Replacing faces with screens is a uniquely modern problem. It isolates us from reality and tempts us to think that we are not affected by the serious problems that surround us every day.
“To go on pilgrimage is to head toward a destination or seek out a goal,” the pope says. “Yet, there is always the risk of heading off into a maze, with no goal in sight, and no way out! We are rightly wary of quick and easy answers, which can lead us into a maze; let us be wary of facile solutions that neatly resolve every issue without leaving room for deeper questions. Let us be wary! Indeed, our vigilance is a tool for helping us to move forward instead of going round in circles.”
Easy answers anesthetize us, the pope says. They fill our minds with facile solutions to complex problems, and they give us false hope. “Our condition as seekers and pilgrims means that we will always be somewhat restless,” Pope Francis says, “for, as Jesus tells us, we are in the world, but not of the world” (Jn 17:15-16).
To be “in the world, but not of the world” requires us to keep our eyes and ears open and to look to the future with both realism and hope. Mature Christians should not be naïve. Sin and evil are all around us (and inside us). If we lose sight of the power of evil or become indifferent to the plight of those who suffer from the devil’s influence, we will lose our way and wander aimlessly in the desert.
Pope Francis counseled the university students, and all of us:
I would encourage you, then, to keep seeking and to be ready to take risks. At this moment in time, we are facing enormous challenges; we hear the painful plea of so many people. Indeed, we are experiencing a third world war fought piecemeal. Yet, let us find the courage to see our world not as in its death throes, but in a process of giving birth, not at the end, but at the beginning of a great new chapter of history.
“A third world war fought piecemeal” in every corner of the globe and among people of every language, culture and socio-economic circumstance is a frightening image. Yet, to deny this reality is to fool ourselves into thinking that all is well when the opposite is clearly true.
And yet, we dare not lose hope. From the vantage point of Christian hope, the pope says, the world is not “in its death throes.” It is simply beginning again, experiencing the pains of new birth.
Let us all be born again in Christ. And may our personal spiritual rebirths help us to guide our weary, war-torn world to the peace of Christ who gives meaning and hope to all.
(Daniel Conway is a member of The Criterion’s editorial committee.) †