It has been a week since Pope Francis’ visit to Malta and many of us can still feel that a dose of good energy still subsists in our hearts. Somehow the presence of a man like Francis, with his prophetic simplicity and radical rootedness in the Gospel, brought fresh air not only to the lungs of the Church in Malta but also in those of the country.
While commenting on the pope’s visit on TV during his mass at the Granaries in Floriana, a question emerged on everybody’s lips: what now? How do we capitalise on the pope’s visit to tackle the most urgent issues on both an ecclesial and social level? Somehow the pope’s visit filled the heart of many with a renewed sense of responsibility.
During the week leading to the pope’s visit, we were living the Lenten eżerċizzi (talks) at the MSSP Oratory in Birkirkara. We focused on the theme of Jesus’ questions in the gospels, taking five of the most compelling questions for our journey of discipleship.
The first question that we tackled was “what do you want? whom are you looking for?” It seemed most appropriate to start the eżerċizzi with the most open-ended question, a question that could spark a journey into life. It was the perfect opener for other questions like “why are you afraid?”, “do you know what I have done to you?”, “who touched me?”, and “why have you abandoned me?”
Letters to a Young Poet, by Ranier Maria RilkeQuestions, especially the right questions, are sometimes more powerful than the clearest of answers; they are the doorstep to wisdom, and promote in us the right attitude of listening, waiting and acting fruitfully. Ranier Maria Rilke invites Franz Xaver Kappus in his Letters to a Young Poet to “be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves” and also to live the questions so that someday he might, without noticing, be living the answers.
The right questions are sometimes more powerful than the clearest of answers; they are the doorstep to wisdom, and promote in us the right attitude of listening, waiting and acting fruitfully
How are the Pope’s visit and Jesus’ questions related? The pope’s visit will have been fruitful if it makes us ask the right questions, down to the most essential one: “what do we want? Whom are we looking for?” When asked what we want, we are encouraged to dig deep in our hearts to sieve through a variety of motivations and desires; we are asked to be honest with ourselves and with others. It is an encouraging but also a deeply challenging question.
By focusing on the gospel of the forgiving of the adulteress, Pope Francis invited us to reflect on how our fragility and vulnerability can become the doorway to seek new life and new opportunities. Most of all, our taking stock of our poverty both as a Church and as a society can create that silence where that question can be heard most clearly, “what do you seek?”
We are invited to see ourselves, as the Pope said, in a permanent state of conversion. Such a continuous conversion feeds on our capacity to listen to that question, at a personal and a structural level. Asking the right questions ensures that the excitement and joy built up by Francis’ visit does not go to waste, but generates new life.