The Seed:
Facebook Post by a Friend:
habemus papam; white smoke, actually whitish, comes out of the roof and bells toll out loud; a new leader of the Catholic Church has been elected…so what?
Today’s Quote:
I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.
~Abraham Lincoln
Witnessing true Catholic faith through a dear friend, by the Divinity of her everyday actions.
I have known her and her family for nearly a decade. I have watched her be a faithful, loving & supporting wife to her husband; raise four amazing children with all the holy love a mother can; come to know the loving parents by whom she herself was raised and taught the values by which she lives; seen her walk in stride (from learning that she grew her own vegetables to save money when she & her husband were struggling to make ends meet and fresh out of college) meeting her at the height of a gain of worldly riches through honest hard work; seeing her after the loss much of those worldly riches with the collapse of the economy circa 2009 and knowing she fell ill and was all but bed ridden for the following year; evidenced that she still picked herself up by sheer strength of faith & will to move forward.
Through all that (and surely even more than what I know) she is the same down to earth, selfless, inspiring person today as she was when I first met her.
External circumstances change, her faith never has.
The Epiphany:
Comment on the seed planted by the Facebook Post by a Friend…
I am far from Catholic. Therefore, I have no opinion on or real interest in who holds the title of Pope. However, in response to the last line of the Facebook Post by a Friend:“…so what?”My immediate thought was, ‘That’s not very nice… but this is still a country with freedom of speech. We are blessed with the ability form any opinion we chose and the freedom publicly express said opinion in just about any venue of our choosing.’ Therefore, the impetus to share this immediate thought was nothing more than an internal and fleeting annoyance. So, on I went with my day…☥ First, I began with my usual habit of reading some motivational quote or meditation before I really get going…
Today’s Quote:
“I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.” ~Abraham Lincoln
☥ Next, I replied to a text, from my friend of the Catholic faith, confirming plans to meet for coffee. Being who she is, I congratulated her on the election of the new Pope, ‘Pope Francis I’ (as of next Tuesday).☥ Suddenly, I felt a little button pushed that I didn’t even know I had!So… here comes the fallout after the ‘Push of The Button.’On the Facebook Post by a Friend:
I’m sure you’ve gotten a barrage of back-fire from others already, since you posted those to little words: “…so what?”Nevertheless, I would like to put my own ‘Comment’ on your ‘Post’ into context, by clarifying what I inferred from your “…so what?”To me, “…so what?” ≈ ”…who cares?” ≈ ”…what difference does it make?”In taking liberty that my inference is correct, inspired by my friend’s active faith in Catholicism and the words of Abraham Lincoln….I said, “So what? I must get to know him better.”I know very little the Jesuits, other than witnessing the conduct/actions/deeds of one Jesuit Graduate, Dr. Joseph Signorile. In knowing him, I concluded one must need to be…•a real smarty,•very disciplined,•extremely benevolent and•full of Divine serenity…to make it through a Jesuit school/seminary.(Dr. Joseph Signorile was my professor for about 75% of my Ex-Phys. courses. I have gained a great respect and admiration for him, over the years of learning from him in both my Graduate and Undergraduate studies at the University of Miami.)
As to the new Pope, I got “to know him better.” These media tidbits caught my attention:
By choosing a name no pope had chosen before, he may be signaling an era of rebirth for a church troubled by corruption and a sexual abuse crisis.
Francis… the first Jesuit… the first man in the modern era from outside Europe to lead the Roman Catholic Church… known [to prize] compassion, humility and simplicity — so much that he gave up his chauffeur in Argentina and took the bus to work… would represent more of a break from the past than the image of yet another elderly man standing on the Vatican balcony.
His official biographer has said that Francis has both keen political instincts and self-effacing humility, and that he would encourage a kind of shoe-leather evangelism within the church. He is known to walk the streets of Buenos Aires to talk to the people:“Jesus teaches us another way: Go out. Go out and share your testimony, go out and interact with your brothers, go out and share, go out and ask. Become the word in body as well as spirit.”…he often hid people on church property during the regime years [in Argentina] and once gave his own identity papers to a man to help him get out of the country.…“We have to avoid the spiritual sickness of a self-referential church,” the new pope said before the conclave. …“It’s true that when you get out into the street, as happens to every man and woman, there can be accidents. However, if the church remains closed in on itself, self-referential, it gets old. Between a church that suffers accidents in the street, and a church that’s sick because it’s self-referential, I have no doubts about preferring the former.”[As Pope Francis,] he also expected to become the first pope in more than 600 years to meet his predecessor.
