There is so much to ponder, don't you think?
The Gift of Tears
If Pope Benedict XVI is recognized especially for his intellectual gifts as a scholar, Pope Francis is perhaps best known for emphasizing what he calls “the reasons of the heart,” which alone “can help us understand the mystery which embraces our loneliness.”
“Reason by itself,” says Francis, “is not capable of making sense of our deepest feelings, appreciating the grief we experience and providing the answers we are looking for.”
Like the paradoxical truth at the heart of the Gospel—“Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies”—Pope Francis is unwavering in his insistence that suffering and even death places us on the path to new life and hopefulness. Why? How?
With our tears, suggests Francis, we shed the illusion of independence, and surrender to our profound need for God and for one another. When we dare to weep, we water the seeds of promise already buried in our confrontation with loneliness, suffering, and death.
“This is our poverty but also our grandeur: to plead for the consolation of God, who in his tenderness comes to wipe the tears from our eyes” (Pope Francis).
If Pope Benedict XVI is recognized especially for his intellectual gifts as a scholar, Pope Francis is perhaps best known for emphasizing what he calls “the reasons of the heart,” which alone “can help us understand the mystery which embraces our loneliness.”
“Reason by itself,” says Francis, “is not capable of making sense of our deepest feelings, appreciating the grief we experience and providing the answers we are looking for.”
Like the paradoxical truth at the heart of the Gospel—“Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies”—Pope Francis is unwavering in his insistence that suffering and even death places us on the path to new life and hopefulness. Why? How?
With our tears, suggests Francis, we shed the illusion of independence, and surrender to our profound need for God and for one another. When we dare to weep, we water the seeds of promise already buried in our confrontation with loneliness, suffering, and death.
“This is our poverty but also our grandeur: to plead for the consolation of God, who in his tenderness comes to wipe the tears from our eyes” (Pope Francis).
