from time to time, I am asked to publish one of my homilies…… from the Fifth Sunday in Lent

Eight years ago when Pope Benedict inherited the chair of Peter, the sense was that the cardinals had voted to continue the papacy of John Paul II.  Continuity was the catch phrase. It what make the verse from Isaiah stand out: “Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing something new!” (Isaiah 43:18)

When Benedict was elected there was a very mixed reaction. I liked the person, in part because Josef Ratzinger was quite the Franciscan scholar having written monumental works on Francis of Assisi and  Bonaventure. So I had a soft spot for him.  Regardless of my openness, it only took a week for the bumper stickers to come out.  From one end of the spectrum came “Pope Benedict: God’s Rottweiler” – not exactly the most welcoming of images.  From the other end, there was “Pope Benedict:  The Cafeteria is Closed” – not exactly the most positive of messages.  Maybe it was the times, maybe it was the weariness of Catholics in this country over the sex abuse scandal, a Church so focused on fixing internal issues – and rightly so – that we felt it was losing touch with the lives we lead.  Or a church that had been too lax to long and needed to return to its missionary past to retrieve a more forceful and evangelizing church.  Maybe all of the above.

Those were some of the thoughts rummaging around, when I sat down to write the pastor’s column on Tuesday afternoon and there was black smoke billowing in the air from the Vatican. 24 hours later whatever I wrote was forgotten as the white smoke billowed and jubilation erupted in St. Peter’s Square and around the world – habemus papem! We have a pope.

When the name of the new pope was announced, given that he was a Jesuit, I assumed it was in honor of St. Francis Xavier, the great Jesuit missionary and saint.  That would have been a great choice to tap the tradition of his own order for a new evangelization.  But from the beginning, it was clear that there was something different here – “see I am doing something new.”

Even the first appearance on the loggia of St. Peter’s was different.  Here was our new pope – and instantly I was struck by his appearance. It was as though he was wearing the minimally acceptable papal wardrobe – and the pectoral cross seemed plain – and his demeanor unassuming.

Even the way he greeted the people was different – just a simple man saying “Hi.”

Even the most hard core reporters on the scene were taken by the simple leading of 100,000+ people in the most familiar of prayers – the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be.  They were taken by the reverence of the moment, so many people in unison praying for something bigger than themselves – the future of their church.  And then when Pope Francis humbly asked them to silently pray for him, bowing before them –the square was filled with silence. Even the most jaded of reporters were stunned – “see I am doing something new.”  Almost across the spectrum from east to west, north to south, believer to non-believer, and any way we slice and dice people’s identity, there is a hopefulness – not because of words, but in the simple way he goes about being Pope-“see I am doing something new.”

I hope you have been following the small accounts and stories of his first few days.  There he is Pope – a whole retinue of people at his beck and call.  But he needs to go back to the hotel where he had been staying to collect his items – and so he simply gets on the bus to ride back with all the cardinals. Something he did everyday going to work as the Cardinal-Archbishop of Buenos Aires.  He has a whole kitchen at his beck and call now – but he sits down with Cardinals at the hotel to eat, starting the blessing with small bit of humor: “May God forgive you for what you have done.”  And at the end of things, collects his belongings, carries his suitcase to the front desk and pays his bill.  Monumental things? – hardly – but they speak volumes.

The long-time Vatican reporter John Allen had a great insight on the new pontificate:

It wasn’t much of a surprise that the cardinals turned to a non-European and a Latin American, since many of them had said out loud that’s what they wanted. As for picking a Jesuit, there have been other popes from religious orders, and sooner or later, it was bound to fall on the Society of Jesus. The name, however, was a stunner.

No matter how long his papacy lasts, the new pontiff’s very first decision will probably rate as among his boldest. Over the years, I’ve talked to historians of the papacy who regarded “Francis” as a name no pope could, or should, ever take. It’s like “Jesus” or “Peter,” they argued — there’s only one, so it would be borderline sacrilegious for a pope to claim it for himself.

But our Pope has indeed taken on the name Francis. And maybe that is the spirit of God at work – a call of what the church should be and who we are called to be – and I am hopeful that God is indeed doing something new. When asked why he had taken the name, the Pope replied ”Francis was “the man of the poor. The man of peace……who wanted a poor church.”  What will it mean to be a “poor church?”  We’ll see. What will it mean to be a church of peace. We are already seeing.

Maybe this Jesuit with a Franciscan spirit is exactly what the Church needs in the Third Millennium. It was announced today that for the first time since the Great Schism between Western and Eastern Christianity in the year 1054, the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, will attend a papal inauguration Mass in St. Peter’s Square Tuesday. A 1000 years of stone throwing – and maybe in this moment – just as the humble Francis of Assisi was told to “rebuild my church” maybe in our age, the humble Pope Francis from Buenos Aires may well lead us to rebuild the church from the oldest sign of disunity within the Body of Christ.

“Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing something new!”

Indeed, something new.

Habemus papem! We have a pope.  Amen.