Don’t be confused
A reflection selected by Sister Sue Gallagher of the Mercy Justice Team
The reflection below is adapted from words by Sister Renee Yann on her blog, Lavish Mercy, which may connect with what many of us are struggling with during these days.
Each night before retiring, I prepare for the next morning’s meditation by reading the assigned scriptures. But too often, the noise of the day intrudes. The night of April 15 was one of those nights. Instead of stillness, my thoughts were preoccupied by reports that I found deeply disturbing.
I also drifted back to a seemingly inconsequential clip from the 6 o’clock news. A reporter had stopped a woman on the street and asked her opinion about the latest clash between the president and the pope.
“It’s unfortunate,” she said. “I think the Church should stay out of politics.”
However casual and uninformed, her answer lingered into my late evening. Beneath it lies a confusion that is anything but casual: the failure to distinguish between politics and morality. Hearing her motivated me to examine my own conscience with this prayer:
Dear God, don’t let me be confused.
- Help me see clearly the difference between politics and morality, yet their critical interdependence.
- Let me honor and attend to the pope as he courageously calls us to moral honesty.
- Let me have the personal courage to name moral corruption that I see consuming current news.
- Let me have the clarity to look beyond confusing, political explanations to see the greed, hatred, and moral weakness infesting our public life.
- Let me not question the pope’s mischaracterized “politics” as he raises a moral voice for the innocent, for the likes of those little schoolgirls massacred with the click of a distant computer button.
- Let me not characterize Pope Leo’s challenge as an unqualified intrusion but as a beacon of truth in a cacophony of self-serving excuses and outright lies.
- Deliver me from the audacious ignorance that would condemn the pope’s theology with the apparent limitations of my own subjective, vainglorious creed.
- Let me not doubt that when the destruction of a civilization is threatened, the pope is impelled to speak, that he is inspirited to lead when other leadership fails.
Perhaps it was coincidence, or perhaps not, that the scripture readings for last week echoed the same tension. The apostles, proclaiming the truth, are challenged and condemned by hypocritical, self-righteous politicians. Christ himself is rejected, not for lack of authority, but for the discomfort of what he reveals.
It has always been easier to label truth as disruptive than to respond to it.
So, the question is not whether the Church should “enter politics.” The question is whether we are willing to hear a moral voice at all. May we have the clarity—and the courage—to answer Pope Leo’s prophetic call.
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Friday alert digest
This is one in our recurring series of Friday reflections, where one of the Mercy Justice Team’s members shares some hope and encouragement, and the team gives you an opportunity to respond to any recent calls to action you might have missed. This week, you still have the opportunity via the alerts below to work for change in unjust systems. Click the link for any of the messages you might have missed this week and add your voice: