Filled With Hope

At the 9AM Mass on Thursday I reflected a little on my recent trip to Italy. After being away on retreat following Easter, I turned around quickly to travel to Todi for a wedding of former students. While in Italy, I was also able to spend time in Perugia and Rome.

I shared that the trip was a blessing: the gathering of the couple’s family and friends was special - many of us were meeting one another for the first time, the weather was perfect, the accommodations were breathtaking, and the celebrations were beautiful.

What struck me most, however, was an abiding sense of God’s presence with me on the trip. You may think I take that kind of thing for granted, but it’s actually been some time since I’ve felt His presence in my life.

I travelled with Father Lachlan, firstly because he lived in Perugia for a time, but more so because I wanted his company. And as we shared life together, I was able to recognize Christ’s presence, because everything seemed effortless, and everything was illuminated.

For the first few days, we moved with the family and friends of the wedding couple, at their pace. There was no sense of rushing or wishing we were elsewhere. After that, making our way through Perugia to Rome, it felt the same: effortless.

And as we lived and moved together, everything was also illuminated. The air had a freshness, and everyone around seemed to be smiling at us, like friends. You may say, “Of course, Father! That’s Italy!” But there was something more in the ease with which we moved about that beautiful country. I can only describe it as givenness.

That very lovely couple, for example, and their families; the beauty of the Italian countryside; the splendor of the Roman Catholic Church of Rome; and the friendship of Father Lachlan. All of these are treasures! And all of them were being given by God, offered to me by His favor and preference, desiring only that I would accept them as gift.

My own shortcomings, for example, which become only more apparent to me when I’m with Father Lachlan, instead of being an objection to the encounter with Christ, seemed almost to cry out to Him on my behalf - without my knowing how - for His Spirit to become present in our friendship. And then He did. But isn’t that what life is: that which is given freely? Does anything else create? And could anything else give hope?

This is why I’m returning home filled with hope for the Church, in particular for our newly elected Pope Leo XIV. Only the fear of having to feel worthy of God’s favor could paralyze us while trying to make our way to Him. I want, rather, to be free to see that God calls whom He wills, and that we are just as much “elected” as the pope. We, too, are chosen by Christ.

I imagine Cardinal Prevost felt something like Saint Matthew when he was called to follow Christ. “Who? Me?” But that call, portrayed in the Caravaggios that Father Lachlan and I were able to see in the Church of San Luigi dei Francesci this week, breaks into the darkness in such a way as to give a man hope that it is possible to respond with a “yes.” +