and now for something quite refreshing

It's hot here in my neck of the woods. So I was glad to find this breath of cool fresh air from, of all people, the new(ish) Pope. The Pope made these spontaneous comments on Monday, addressing the seeming indifference to the Church in western society:

"The Pope is not an oracle; he is infallible in very rare situations, as we know. Therefore, I share with you these questions, these problems. I also suffer," he said in his address, transcribed and published by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano.

"All of us together want, on one hand, to suffer with these problems and, through suffering, transform the problems, because suffering is precisely the way of transformation, and without suffering nothing is transformed," he said.

"We must take these difficulties of our time seriously and transform them by suffering with Christ, and so transform ourselves," he said.

"And in the measure that we ourselves are transformed, we can also answer the question articulated earlier; we can see the presence of the kingdom of God and make others see it," he stated.

"We must go forward, go through the tunnel with patience, with the certainty that Christ is the answer and that in the end his light will appear again."

"In all this suffering, not only must we not lose the certainty that Christ is really the face of God, but in addition we must deepen this certainty and the joy of knowing it and of really being, therefore, ministers of the world's future, of the future of every man."

"And we must deepen this certainty in a personal and profound relationship with the Lord," he said.

I find myself looking at those words, nodding my head. Our world, church included, is definitely in crisis mode at the moment. There's no "one answer" - other than the one in the Gospels. Seek the kingdom first. Remove the log from our own eyes before we worry about the splinter in our neighbors. Love God. Love our neighbors. If we're faithful to that message (which I'm afraid we - individuals, church, nation - often are not even if we think we are), the vision will have its time. It will surely come.

Refreshing too to hear that the Pope does not think he is an oracle. He knows that everything he says is not infallible. I also wonder how he feels about the job after his first 100 days?

I think our world would in fact be well served if we, each of us, related to that world through our own relationships to God. If we transform ourselves and work to build God's kingdom, others will see it. I kind of like the image of going through the tunnel with patience, waiting for the light, knowing it will appear again.

Like I said, refreshing. Hmmm…… Methinks perhaps the Holy Spirit is doing what the Holy Spirit does best? I pray that it so for all of us, the Pope included.