Silent Blessing = Loud Proclamation

Ave Maria!  He did it again.  Pope Francis behaved in a nontraditional manner.  Rather than conform to papal protocol, he conformed to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, the gospel of truth, humility and simplicity, the Gospel of love.  How marvelously refreshing!

By now, most of us have heard of our Holy Father's latest break with papal tradition, which delighted some while rattling others.  This was at the conclusion of his first meeting with the media.  One of the 6000 plus attendees, Dr. Robert Moynihan of The Moynihan Letters reports on this meeting in his "Letter #49: Black Shoes" (FYI, at the moment, Letter #49 hasn't been posted to Moynihan's Web site, but it will undoubtedly appear later today).  Here's Moynihan's account of how Pope Francis wrapped things up in his now becoming increasingly familiar "un-pope-like-but oh-so-Christ-like" fashion.

And then Francis did something which surprised everyone, pleased many, and shocked a few. 

The moment had come for him to impart to all of us his Apostolic Blessing, but he did not do this in the usual way. 

In fact, he made no exterior gesture at all. He did not lift his hand, he did not move it in the form of a blessing, and he did not speak "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" out loud. 

He said, in Italian: "I cordially impart to all of you my blessing. Thank you." And then, in Spanish, he explained as follows: "I told you I was cordially imparting my blessing. Since many of you are not members of the Catholic Church, and others are not believers, I cordially give this blessing silently, to each of you, respecting the conscience of each, but in the knowledge that each of you is a child of God. May God bless you!"  

And with that, he turned and left. 

One of my colleagues turned to me and said, "Where was the papal blessing?" 

"He gave it silently," I said. "He blessed us silently, without presupposing anything. He was trying to be respectful of individual consciences. This is not a purely religious gathering." 

"But it still seems like something is missing," my friend said. "No blessing!" 

"But there was a blessing," I said. "We just could not see it. It is like what Ratzinger used to say, that in heaven, in the presence of God, there will no longer be any external rites or rituals to signify our worship, all those things will pass away, because the perfect will have come..." 

"But are we already in heaven?" my friend replied. 

"No," I said. "But can't we believe we are on the way?" 

But my friend still was not satisfied. "I would have liked to have received a blessing from him," he said. 

"You did," I said. 

There will be more time in the future to reflect more deeply on these questions, which of course also have a relation to the liturgy. For the moment, it is enough to say that Pope Francis, also in this matter of giving a silent, not a public blessing to the journalists, did something without recent precedent, which is providing all of us with cause for meditation and inward conversion. 

And that is what should be our thought at this time, just as Cardinal Hummes told Pope Francis as the vote total rose: "never forget the poor." We should never forget our own need for conversion. We should be converted to Christ. We are ever in need of deeper conversion.  

This is what Pope Francis is calling us to, if we can but hear him...

Dear friends, let us remember the words of Our Savior:  "He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me." (Luke 10:16)

And let us pray for each other ... that through the grace of dear Our Lord and Savior, we may open our ears to hear Pope Francis and open our hearts to let Jesus convert us.

"For what we preach is not ourselves,

but Jesus Christ as Lord,

with ourselves as your servants

for Jesus sake."

~ 2 Cor 4:5