Just a word before we go...Second Sunday of Easter...April 27, 2025

In our Gospel today we see Thomas’ famous struggle with the resurrection of Jesus. But rather than being an obstacle to belief, it was that very doubt that provided the opening for Jesus to reveal the face of God in a new way, one that set the stage for the gathered disciples to more fully comprehend the mystery of Jesus’ dying and rising.  Thomas recognizes the transformed yet still apparent wounds, as God’s being vulnerable, leading him to proclaim. “My Lord and my God!”  Through his doubt, Thomas was able to discern the deeper reality for those gathered and gave credence to what we proclaimed in the Exultet at the Vigil last Saturday evening, “God’s mighty love is stronger than death!”  

I would suggest that Pope Francis also revealed the face of God in a new way.

There is a story that the pope’s interpretation of the idea that Jesus knocks at the door asking to be admitted to our hearts, as perhaps Jesus knocking for us to come out instead, to join him in the world.  Francis certainly involved himself in the world, revealing the face of God in new ways, as evidenced by the many who have written about Pope Francis in the wake of his death.

Paulist Fr. Mark-David Janus writes that from Francis’ first moments as pope, “we discovered a pope who was one of us, who before he blessed us, asked us to bless him. He taught that we are on a journey of faith together.  He did not force an institution of rules and righteousness on us, he offered us a relationship to the risen Christ, found in Word, Sacrament and Community, a relationship to the Holy Spirit present in us, in people of other faiths and of no faith at all, even in relation to our blue planet.  The lifeblood of all these relationships is listening.  The Holy Father begged us to listen more than we talk.”

Closer to home, two of our parishioners have written about Pope Francis: Dr. Tony Cernera remembers Francis as “ a symbol of God’s infinite love for all human beings.”  Modeling humility and moral courage and advocating for refugees, the pope gave example of “moving out of our own isolation and into the reality that we are created for communion with one another and the creation which is our home, as well as the God who created us.”

Dr. Paul Lakeland has written, “Alive and very much himself only a few hours before he succumbed to a stroke, Francis was as open, vulnerable, and public in his death as he had been throughout his papacy. Fearless, Humble, Forthright and Lovable,” Francis followed the example of Jesus, being present to all, “making him perhaps the most genuinely human pope we have seen in our time. Francis’ modus operandi has always been the medicine of mercy,” perhaps most clearly seen in his famous remark, “Who am I to judge.”