Pope Benedict is coming to town.  It is his first visit to us as pope – as universal pastor of the Roman Catholic community.  It is a pastoral visit – the shepherd visiting the flock.  It is, I think, only right and opportune that we take the time to reflect on and appreciate the meaning and the worth of this major event in the life of our Catholic community.

The title of this talk was deliberately chosen:  A Reflection on the Pastoral Service of the Popes to the Church.  And so it’s a reflection on the pastoral service of the popes – and not narrowly of this pope.  Benedict will turn eighty-one during his visit with us but he is still rather young in tenure as pope.  And this talk wants to be a reflection – sometimes theological, sometimes personal, sometimes historical and sometimes all three together.  It is my hope that reflection and meditation will move us toward appreciation of the deeper meaning, the deeper truth – the deeper worth, the deeper value of the gift or the grace of the papacy in the life of the church.  One sign of going deeper for me is that we learn to leave behind us the all too narrowing and shallowing categories of right/left, conservative/liberal.  From experience I think we all know that facile debate cramps good conversation; it dulls and flattens reflection.

Now we all know the church understands the popes to be successors of Peter, the first bishop of Rome.  In ecumenical circles the conversation is about the pope serving a “Petrine” function in the church.  Peter did function as leader of the apostles, as even a quick reading of the Acts of the Apostles will confirm.  Even Paul, a man not given to humble unawareness of his own apostolic status, saw himself constrained to present himself and his apostolate to Peter in Jerusalem.  The gospels confirm Peter’s leadership role by recalling a kind of commissioning he received from Jesus.  I would like to begin our reflection by taking a closer look at these commissioning scenes.  The scenes are not uniform in tone and emphasis.

Perhaps the most familiar commissioning scene is found in the gospel of Matthew [16, 13-19]

…Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”  He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”  Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”  And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah!  For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.  And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.  I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”

Clearly Peter is being singled out.  He is the rock of the church.  He has the power to “bind and loose,” that is, he has decision-making authority.  And whereas the scribes and Pharisees “lock up” the kingdom of God, Peter is given “the keys to the kingdom”.  I would point out that two chapters later in Matthew [18, 18] Jesus gives the power to “bind and loose” to the whole community, so Peter does not possess this authority in isolation.  Nonetheless, there is here a kind of power or authority being conferred.  We have here, I think, the beginnings of a sense of office, position, duty, function in the church.

There’s another commissioning scene, this time in the gospel of John.  John locates it at the end of his gospel as a post-resurrection appearance of the Risen Lord in Galilee.  I think you will notice its different tone from Matthew’s commissioning.

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”  He said to him. “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.”  Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”  A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”  He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.”  Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.”  He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”  Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?”  And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”  Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.”

Again Peter is being singled out.  It seems clear that the threefold denier of Jesus is to become pre-eminent through the threefold guarantee of his love of Jesus.  But notice this:  Peter’s love of Jesus is to be shown through his loving care for the sheep, for the community of the Risen Lord Jesus.  Peter’s pre-eminence is a pastor’s care for the community.  The pastor feeds and nourishes the community.

For our third scene we return to the gospel of Matthew, to chapter 14.  Again Matthew highlights Peter’s primacy, his pre-eminence among the disciples.  But he does this in a dramatically different way.

… he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.  And after he had dismissed the crowds, Jesus went up the mountain by himself to pray.  When evening came, he was there alone, but by this time the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them.  And early in the morning he came walking toward them on the sea.  But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!”  And they cried out in fear.  But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.

Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”  He said, “Come.”  So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus.  But when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord, save me!”  Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”  When they got into the boat, the wind ceased.  And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”  [Mt 14, 22-33]

This is a more nuanced portrait of Peter as church leader.  The Jesus coming to the disciples, coming to the already battered and besieged church is the presence of the one calling the church to join him walking on the water.  Come to live the Beatitudes!  Come to live the love of the Father for evil and good alike!  Come to live forgiveness as a whole lifestyle!  Join me walking on these waters!  And Peter responds.  Peter leads by moving to walk the same waters as Jesus.  Peter leads by trying to risk the actual doing of Jesus’ life.  Peter leads by excelling as faithful disciple.   And faithful discipleship is always an activity, never a mere possession – a doing and not a mere thinking.  Faithful discipleship is like a song that disappears when we stop singing.  No doing, then no discipleship!  No living, then no discipleship!  Fear is the enemy of discipleship.  Peter does not begin to sink and then become frightened, but he becomes frightened and so begins to sink.  Losing sight of Jesus means focusing only on the strength and resources he brings to discipleship.  Such a self-focused life is incapable of hope and can only move toward final fear.  Peter learned that when he denied Jesus.M

From all three gospel scenes I think we get a sense that Peter stands out among the disciples.  He is selected to lead.  Each scene paints the scenario of leadership in different tones and flourishes.  The first scene from Matthew emphasizes power and authority.  Peter is given decision-making authority.  He has been given a position in the church.  John’s scene understands this position or office of Peter as his duty to love and nourish the community of the Risen Lord.  And finally the walking-on-water scene in Matthew has Peter being pre-eminent pastor to the church by trying to join Jesus in his whole way of life.  Peter the pastor is Peter the faithful disciple, stepping out of the boat to show those inside, the church, what it really means to follow the Lord Jesus.  It means the risk of living in faith, hope and love – the risk of choosing to make the Sermon on the Mount my life’s guide and goal.

That is how Peter nourishes the community, how he pre-eminently exercises pastoral power and authority.  He models living the Sermon on the Mount.

In my own reflection I would want to move that image of Peter walking on water to center front.  This is how I understand the gift and grace of the papacy to the church – stepping out from among us to show us what it means today to join Jesus walking on water.

There are of course other ways of reflecting on the pastoral service of the popes – other emphases and tones, as we see in the gospels themselves.  As a matter of historical fact and due to historical circumstances emphasis in our church since the Reformation has been on the power, authority and office of the popes.  Under attack or unfriendly scrutiny it is natural to defend with protective devotion.  But there’s a danger with that.  The danger is that defense becomes the dominant mode of reflection and response.  Then the power itself becomes increasingly the chosen value to be defended.  And with that too little time is spent probing what the power is there for.  Too little time is spent probing how to walk on water with Jesus.

Popes have walked on water.  Popes have shown us how to live the risk of Jesus’ life.  In the last century I would name three:  John XXIII, John Paul II and the little known pope, Pope Benedict’s predecessor, Benedict XV.

There’s a general fondness for Pope John XXIII [1958-1963], the roly-poly pope who convened Vatican II.  He is the pope “of happy memory”.  But perhaps we fail to recognize the man’s depth or the pope’s courage in calling the church to newness of life.  At his coronation mass he heard the ancient formula:  Know that thou art the father of princes and kings, pontiff of the whole world and Vicar of Christ on earth.  But in his homily John clearly presented himself as wanting to be a good shepherd of the flock.  He said:  There are those who expect the pontiff to be a statesman, a diplomat, a scholar, the organizer of the collective life of society, or someone whose mind is attuned to every form of modern knowledge…  The new Pope, through the events and circumstances of his life, is like the son of Jacob who, meeting with his brothers, burst into tears and said, “I am Joseph, your brother.”  John presented himself as our brother, not the father of princes and kings.

He was the pastor who visited Regina Coeli prison the day after Christmas and being asked by a man convicted of murder “Can there be forgiveness for me?” simply hugged the man.  In the opening session of Vatican II John called the council fathers and the church to give up its distance from the world, to stop seeing the modern world as nothing but betrayal and ruination, but rather, to give ourselves eagerly and without fear to the task that the present age demands of us – and in so doing we will be faithful to what the Church has done in the last twenty centuries.  …Christians and Catholics of apostolic spirit all the world over expect a leap forwards in doctrinal insight and the education of consciences in ever greater fidelity to authentic teaching.  …For the substance of the ancient deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another.  Pope John called the church to step out of its comfortable past and its judging distance and to sing faith’s song in modern harmony.  Hug the human being actually in front of you.  Stop clinging to the moral caricatures that only a sense of moral superiority draws.  That’s how we are to join Jesus walking on water.

Pope John Paul II needs little introduction.  He is the pope “of recent memory”.  He held the papal office from 1978 to 2005, some twenty-six years.  Much happened during those years both within and outside of the church.  But I want to draw our attention to something that happened among the churches, indeed, among the world religions – something that had everything to do with John Paul getting out in front of the religious communities of the world and modeling communities of faith open to the Spirit of God.  I am referring to the 1986 meeting at Assisi of representatives and leaders of the world’s religions to pray for peace.

There were one hundred and fifty representatives from twelve world religions:  the Dalai Lama, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Mother Teresa to name a few.  As he welcomed the participants, John Paul stated he had not invited them to come for merely another interreligious conference on peace.  Rather, his invitation was that together they proclaim to the world there exists another dimension of life and peace and another way to promote them – prayer, interreligious prayer.  In the encyclical Dominum et Vivificantem he spoke of the presence of the Holy Spirit in all prayer – in the prayer of Hindus and Buddhists, the prayer of Muslims and Jews.  Assisi gave concrete shape and expression to God’s Spirit at work in our world.  John Paul, as was his want, took on dramatic world stage presence to invite us all to dance with the Spirit of God.

Our final pope, Benedict XV [1914-1922], is largely unknown to us.  He is the pope “of little memory”.  On September 3, 1914 Cardinal Giacomo Della Chiesa, Archbishop of Bologna, was elected pope.  He had been a cardinal only four months.  He was not well known even then, except within closed Vatican circles.  Being elected pope in 1914 thrust him on to a world stage where World War I was playing out.  He could not but become a world figure but also one that attracted deep hostility from both sides of the conflict precisely because of his efforts on behalf of peace.  He wrote an Apostolic Exhortation to belligerents on both sides.  Listen to what he said:   Abandon the mutual threat of destruction.  Remember, Nations do not die; humiliated and oppressed, they bear the weight of the yoke imposed upon them, preparing themselves for their come-back and transmitting from one generation to the next a sad legacy of hatred and vendetta.  …It is not true that this conflict cannot be resolved without the violence of arms.  …Blessed be he who first raises the olive branch of peace and extends his right hand to the enemy offering reasonable conditions for peace.  The equilibrium of the world and prosperity and secure tranquility of nations rest on mutual benevolence and the respect of the rights of and dignity of others, rather than on a multitude of armies and a formidable ring of fortresses.  These are words worth listening to today, convinced, as we seem, to the inevitability of violence in our dealings with one another and with nations.  We seem convinced violence works.

Throughout the war Benedict initiated humanitarian relief measures comparable in scale to the great work of the International Red Cross.  The main thrust was the welfare of prisoners of war: repatriating sick POWs, finding missing persons, facilitating family contacts.  The Vatican set up hospitals and sanatoria in neutral Switzerland for POWs and civilian detainees to convalesce.  Neither religion nor nationality mattered.  These undertakings were so vast during and after the war that Benedict almost bankrupted the Vatican.  Imagine:  the Vatican bankrupted for peace!  Benedict danced to the tunes coming from the Sermon on the Mount and invited all to join the dance.  Many, Christians too, thought the dance unreal and ridiculous.  Recall the disciples seeing Jesus walking on waters and yelling “a ghost”, unreal, unsubstantial, dreamy, out of this real world!  But some others at least respected the dance.  In 1920 the Turkish Government erected a statue to Benedict XV in Istanbul.  The dedication reads in part:  the great pope of the world tragedy  …  the benefactor of all people, irrespective of nationality or religion.

So we have come to Benedict XVI and to the conclusion of this reflection.  I would ask that you take away with you the gospel image of walking on water.  It’s a wonderful image.  Really work with it.  Imagine Jesus walking on water.  Imagine Peter walking on water.  And then imagine an eighty year old man dressed in white walking on water.  Imagine yourselves walking on water.  The honest truth is that each of those figures is trying very hard to walk on water; they are doing the best they know how.  But also the honest truth – and this I intend to be utterly freeing – they fail in trying to join Jesus walking on water.  Peter fails.  Popes and priests fail.  We all fail.  And so we can live in hope, responding to the grace of the Spirit of God.  Our learning to walk on water with Jesus will involve our no longer clinging to and hugging these failures – our own and others’.

I think it would be good for us to end by praying for the pope, praying for Benedict and praying for ourselves as well.  I’d like to use a prayer from Ignatius of Loyola, the Prayer for Generosity.  It’s a prayer for a large-hearted, generous spirit.