I thank God for the gift that is Pope Francis. Yesterday, he again astounded the world with his interview where he expressed refreshing thoughts on what it means to be a disciple of Christ in this day and age.
He continues to proclaim and bring the good news of the kingdom of God as Christ did: “We need to proclaim the Gospel on every street corner, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing, even with our preaching, every kind of disease and wound.”
He continues the healing ministry of Christ, wanting to bring about healing not only of the body but of the total human person: “I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds…. And you have to start from the ground up.”
He challenges us out of our mediocrity to bring the Church and the Good News to all: ”This church with which we should be thinking is the home of all, not a small chapel that can hold only a small group of selected people. We must not reduce the bosom of the universal church to a nest protecting our mediocrity.”
He would lead us to a deeper and more vigorous effort in our search and desire to encounter God: “When we desire to encounter God, we would like to verify him immediately by an empirical method. But you cannot meet God this way.”
He reminds us not to forget the root and source of our faith and hope: “Christian hope is not a ghost and it does not deceive. It is a theological virtue and therefore, ultimately, a gift from God that cannot be reduced to optimism, which is only human. God does not mislead hope; God cannot deny himself. God is all promise.”
“Soon afterwards Jesus went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God.”
Luke 8:1-3