If Christ were here today, I doubt if He would be welcome in the board rooms of Wall Street. He would probably chastise the people there as He did the Pharisees,“You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.” And the people in those board rooms would probably also have Him crucified. Pope Francis comes to the poor, the lowly and those in the peripheries and they come out in droves to welcome him.
If Christ were here today, I cannot imagine Him carousing in indulgence and hedonism with the denizens of Hollywood. For beneath all the noisy merry-making is a deep-rooted emptiness that people want to forget. This emptiness would be among the evil spirits that Christ drove out of people’s lives. Pope Francis visits the hungry and the sick, sharing but a cup of cold water, a piece of bread, a loving embrace and a few words of consolation and it instantly becomes a feast.
If Christ were here today, I think it highly unlikely that He would be truly welcome in the halls of legislations where law-makers keep on legislating laws agains the dignity and sanctity of human life. They would throw Him out because there is a separation of Church and State. Pope Francis visits and is welcomed in prisons where he talks about love and forgiveness, penance and penitence.
In fact, the Sermon on the Mount today is proclaimed not from a grassy knoll but upon the garbage heaps in the slums where the poor and outcasts live. Christ is not welcome in the halls and homes of the rich, the powerful and the famous. He is welcome in the hovels and communities of the last, the lost and the least of the brothers.
I need not guess where I can truly encounter Him.