Joyful, Joyful!

A storm was on its way at the time, forecast to hit the very place he was coming to visit. And yet he proceeded on his path. “The Pope is not afraid of the rains,” his spokesperson said. He was not afraid of the winds, either.

I am a Roman Catholic burdened by so much unbelief. I do not just close my eyes and imbibe everything my religion tells me. Truth to tell, I even question my religion a lot.

What are all these church rituals about? Do they really have spiritual value? What moral authority do church leaders have in telling the poor to accept poverty as God’s will when they themselves live in abundance and comfort? Most of all – is God even real?

If God is real, then He knows how much I want to believe. Why does He make it difficult for me? Why does He choose to be invisible? Why does He make Himself so unreachable? Why only so few have experienced His presence – if such claims are even true?

My own searching for God has so far pointed me to the fact that since the beginning of time people have been searching for Him. All the more I despair figuring out that if the common search for God has already taken so long, then what assurance do I have to find Him in my earthly time? The feeling of uncertainty all the more feeds to my unbelief.

But a passing few seconds TV footage of this 78-year-old man in white robe presented a glimmer of hope. Seeing the Pope peeked through the small window of the Sri Lankan airliner hit me in a very big way. Inexplicably, it felt to me like “God is not in heaven, He is here.”

Then I collected my senses. I figured out, Being the topmost head of all the Roman Catholics of the world, this man must just be doing his job well. And, really, perhaps he was just doing a job – nothing personal nor godly about it. Maybe the whole thing was just “a production to delight the crowd.”

If so, then he did his part very well. The minutes I spent glued to the TV screen had been most productive. It shook my slumbering faith.

I wouldn’t claim to have been an eager fan of the Pope. But I fully understand the fervor displayed by the millions that awaited him wherever he went. And I rejoice the fact he had come and spent time in the country.

The Pope is not God, of course! But he appears to me to exemplify the virtues of mercy and compassion, which he preaches. His simplicity and humility flow naturally, it makes you check on the many, many little things you complain about.

“If we take away the poor from the [Scriptures],” Pope Francis said in a mass at the Manila Cathedral, on January 16, “we can’t understand the whole message of the Gospel.” The words altered my own concept of poverty – that it is not necessarily a dark thing altogether. Poverty, to me, became either something to be endured or a challenge to be overcome; and the responsibility about it does not rest in the poor alone, but in those around them, as well.

The amazing thing is that the Church’s position on poverty is nothing new to me. I’ve had heard of it many times before, but have never been touched by it in the same way. This time, the messenger lends credence to the message. 

The modesty of Pope Francis is disturbing; it seems to run in stark contrast to our many everyday vanities. But his presence is a delight, a kind of reassurance that it is actually possible to follow in Christ’s footsteps. It makes me think that, maybe, I need not look too far up in the heavens to see the image of God – because, maybe, God is much closer than I had always thought.

My questions about my religion are still there. I must admit, the Pope’s visit has not really fully quenched my spiritual thirst. But perhaps I am at that point of the journey where I have to walk the remaining distance all by myself. And I will, especially now that the light along the way has been re-kindled at least – to my great joy!