Cling to Christ

Just before his passing, Pope Francis’s final Easter Sunday homily turned our eyes intently and singularly on the risen Lord Jesus: “Brothers and sisters,” he told us, “this is the greatest hope of our life: we can live this poor, fragile and wounded existence clinging to Christ, because he has conquered death.”

In his embrace of this great mystery of redemption, the Pope’s death is a final instruction to his flock: Christ is all that we have, when it comes down to it. He is the end all, be all of our existence, and our lives – for all the relationships and projects we care for in the midst of them – are a pilgrimage toward this ultimate homecoming in Him.

The days that have followed the Pope’s passing, then, might be taken as a resonating invitation on this score. In our sadness, our reflection upon the Holy Father’s life, our hopes and our prayers for him and for the future, we can, above all, fix our minds firmly on Christ Jesus. In our fervent and affectionate prayers for the repose of the Holy Father’s soul, we can entrust him to the loving mercy of the Lord. In our prayers for the College of Cardinals, we can ask that zeal for Christ and His desires for the Church would fill their minds and hearts. And as we ask that every grace and protection be poured out upon our next Pope, we can beg the Lord to draw nearer and nearer to him, every hour of the days to come.

For it is ultimately Christ Himself who is head of the Church. He draws us into His affairs, calling into His service faith-filled, extraordinary people like Pope Francis, and dignifying them by allowing service to Him to matter. But He always remains Lord. The transition that will touch the Church in the coming weeks is worth our attention and care, but even more so is a re-rooting of our souls in the stance of which the Pope spoke, this Easter: one of clinging to our Risen Lord, our King and our Hope.

What a privilege it has been to have been led by a fellow disciple of such remarkable love for Jesus these past twelve years. In our last acts of faithful, filial reverence for him, perhaps we may simply accept that invitation these days offer: to aspire to the same depth of love that marked Francis’s pontificate to its core, and which is the best gift we may give and receive as a Church – as pilgrims, together, under one Head, and as pilgrims, together, on the way.