Reflection for December 17
Pope Francis offers a remarkably relevant key to us in our time toward understanding today’s gospel. He preaches our Lord’s genealogy as a looking back along the way that brought us here, a call to remember, at one point saying simply: “It is a character of love, not to forget.”
He quotes the Letter to the Hebrews: “Think of your forefathers …look back on the days of old” (Heb. 13, 7; 10, 32). As we do, we see – in the genealogy, in our history as a people, and in our own lives – “instants of fidelity and… moments of infidelity,” “a history of grace and a history of sin.” In all this, “we look back, to go forward”; as for our destination, the pope cites scripture: “Be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5:48)
It’s a long road. In our day, we have been called to look back, and
much of what we have seen has been evil. But as we look back to go
forward, we can neither condemn nor justify the past wholesale; we
must recognize how entangled our histories of grace and of sin – our
Church’s, our country’s, our own – have been and still are. To see
everything as bright or as dark is not to see at all.
Even more, we must recognize “the Lord is there with his hands
outstretched, to help [us] onward and to say to [us], keep going.” That,
for Francis, is the final meaning of the genealogy: “The history of a
God who chose to walk with His people and ultimately to become a
human like any of us.”
And Pope Francis was doubtless looking back on his own life; he
preached this homily on his 80th birthday. Today is his 86th birthday. Let us keep him in prayer.
Paul Chu