Popes traditionally give a catechetical teaching on Wednesdays at the Vatican, right outside St. Peter's Basilica and into the square when the weather is right. Most recently, they have been all about hope. During the first week of October, Pope Leo said this to the gathered faithful: "Brothers and sisters, Christ's resurrection teaches us that no history is so marked by disappointment or sin that it cannot be visited by hope. No fall is definitive, no night is eternal, no wound is destined to remain open forever. However distant, lost or unworthy we may feel, there is no distance that can extinguish the unfailing power of God's love."
"No fall is definitive." How many of us have done something we've regretted so much it's made us sick? We've wanted to feel invisible, hit rewind and forget it ever happened. But we can't. And we are also invited to believe good can come from it. Our mistake, our sin, may teach us something. It may be contagious in its grace.
No wound is meant to remain open forever. When grieving a death, as we all must do, it seems like the world should not go on. And yet it does. Though it may feel like it will never look different, it can and will, with the miracle of patience. Healing works wonders. But it takes time.
Pope Leo was speaking frankly, knowing how deep suffering runs. His predecessor, Pope Francis, often got people -- even the "liberal media" -- to do a double-take and give the Catholic Church a second look because of his embrace of the man with severe facial deformities. All he saw was someone made in the image and likeness of God, and that's what the action conveyed.
Politics can't provide that sort of radical outlook. Though a politics that loves its enemies would be a remarkable transformation.
It is a common misconception that God only comes to the pious and those unscathed by sin. But those non-existent perfect souls wouldn't need a savior. They wouldn't need the miracles only God can make possible. Pope Leo emphasized that Christ is "close to us precisely in the darkest places: in our failures, in our frayed relationships, in the daily struggles that weigh on our shoulders, in the doubts that discourage us. Nothing that we are, no fragment of our existence, is foreign to him."
That's amazing.
But it can be so hard to see, acknowledge and take comfort in. Leo, as every contemporary pope has at one time or another, makes clear that it is in the mundane everyday that we can find God's presence. He said God "walks alongside each of us" and "with infinite delicacy asks us to let him warm our hearts. He does not impose himself loudly; he does not demand to be recognized immediately. He waits patiently for the moment when our eyes will open to see his friendly face, capable of transforming disappointment into hopeful expectation, sadness into gratitude, resignation into hope." His patience beckons us to be patient. His love makes us want to love -- makes it possible to love.
We long for something greater, because we were made for something greater. All Christian revivals occur because humans at heart understand this: We are not meant to be alone, because that's how God made us. Every good thing can flow from there, through God and with God.
Now is the time to live out this understanding.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review magazine and author of the new book "A Year With the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living." She is also chair of Cardinal Dolan's pro-life commission in New York, and is on the board of the University of Mary. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.
Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.
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