The Cries of God's People

in mourning for our beloved pope

Photo by Coronel Gonorrea on Unsplash

In a papacy bursting with beautiful and challenging lines, the one I’ve found myself most often reaching for is from Laudato si’. (To be honest, I leaned on it quite a lot in my days writing at Catholic Relief Services.) Pope Francis—as was his way—never wanted us to forget the poor, the marginalized, the vulnerable, the forgotten. He wanted us to see the real flesh-and-blood person standing in front of us. But he didn’t want our gaze to stop only at what we could immediately see. He wanted us to ask questions, to dig deeper, to seek out the fullness of that person, of their story. He wanted us to see all things as interconnected because, as Ignatian spirituality reminds us, God is in all things.

And so, the line—half a line, really—is this: “to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” (LS 49).

We are in the earliest stages of mourning our beloved pope, but in my prayer this morning, this was the line that once again bubbled to the surface. And so I wonder, as we begin these days of grief, whose cries has Pope Francis helped us to more clearly hear?

• Perhaps the cries of the migrant, the refugee, the asylum seeker, the ones forced to flee their homes in search of safety and new life? (I think of that first papal trip to Lampedusa to pray for migrants lost at sea.)

• Perhaps the cries of the imprisoned, those grappling publicly with their own missteps and the repercussions of those mistakes? (I think of his washing the feet of young people in prison every Holy Thursday.)

• Perhaps the cries of the young: children suffering malnutrition, teenagers struggling to find hope, young mothers trying to raise even younger babies and on and on?

• Perhaps the cries of the worker trying to find dignified work? Perhaps the cries of the abused? Perhaps the cries of those of other faith traditions? Perhaps the cries of LGBTQ folks? Perhaps the cries of God’s own creation yearning to be cherished and cared for?

As we reflect on the legacy of Pope Francis, we see again and again his concern with hearing and heeding the cries of all these people and more.

“How much violence we see, often even within families, directed at women and children!” Francis wrote in his final public message, the “orbi et orbi” of this past Easter. “How much contempt is stirred up at times towards the vulnerable, the marginalized, and migrants!”

Francis offers us a way forward: peace through hope, a peace that is expansive, that makes room for all, that points to God’s dream for all of creation.

“On this day, I would like all of us to hope anew and to revive our trust in others, including those who are different than ourselves, or who come from distant lands, bringing unfamiliar customs, ways of life and ideas! For all of us are children of God!

“I would like us to renew our hope that peace is possible!”

Hope can feel like a flimsy word. But confident in the light of Easter, Pope Francis disagreed.

“The resurrection of Jesus is indeed the basis of our hope. For in the light of this event, hope is no longer an illusion. Thanks to Christ — crucified and risen from the dead — hope does not disappoint! Spes non confundit! (cf. Rom 5:5). That hope is not an evasion, but a challenge; it does not delude, but empowers us.”

And so in hope, we go out into the world to hear those cries of God’s people, of God’s creation. We do so empowered to walk alongside those who are hurting, to offer them a word of comfort.

As we begin this Easter season, as we grapple with the enormous, global loss of our beloved pope, I’m struck by two things: One, we never can quite know when someone is going through their own Holy Week story—passion, suffering and death. I wonder how closely Francis tied his own final week to that of Christ’s.

But on the other hand, we never can know when God’s great Easter joy will spring upon us. As Tolkien put it, the eucatastrophe of our story, the sudden and unexpected turn toward joy, an eruption of God’s unlooked for grace. That’s the resurrection: a sudden, surprising turn toward the light.

I find some comfort in knowing that—after a lifetime of hearing and heeding the cries of God’s people—Pope Francis now rests in God’s all-encompassing, grace-filled presence.

Let us continue Pope Francis’ good work. And let us continue our prayer for Pope Francis—may he rest in peace.

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