Pope Francis recently said,
“Indifference is today’s quarantine of choice, to protect ourselves from the ‘virus’ of reality”.
We need to see reality without any masks.
We need to raise awareness of those ‘sins’ that the world has now incorporated into its normality and no longer perceives them as such! The pandemic has been an opportunity to reflect on many things.
Do we want a more human humanity without modern day slaves, without exploited men and women?
Do we still want nations to exploit other nations?
The Pope says,
“Reality is better seen from the suburbs. From the centre you have a sweetened, distorted vision; while from the periphery you see the raw, real reality without a mask”.
The church needs to go right to the peripheries.
We need to open up to a concrete encounter with existential peripheries, without falling into the trap of making theoretical reflections that have never really encountered the charm of beautiful reality.
As Christians we cannot just look after ‘our own’.
In his many statements of the last few years, Pope Francis has sought to help us become aware of the real needs of the human family.
Overprotective nationalism can promote selfishness.
Making my ‘country great’ has often been understood to mean doing so at the expense of others. Making my country great should not just be purely about economies or military power.
It should be about the quality of life and being fully the human beings that God wants us to be.
It is about the common good.
It is about justice.
It is about respect for the dignity of the human person.
It is about the good of all, transcending pure self-interest.
It is about all being ‘great’, being who God wants us to be!
