Author : Jorathe Nắng Tím
Translator
: A. Prisca
January
02, 2020
"Love
makes us patient. So many times we lose patience, even me, and I apologize for
yesterday's bad example," Pope Francis has apologized for slapping a
woman's hand to free himself from her grip while greeting children and pilgrims
in St. Peter's Square on New Year's Eve. The picture and the video clip of this
incident has been spread out over social media networks and got so many
different comments and opinions.
Personally,
I have a few points for the reflection on this event, basing on Pope’s apology.
1. “Love makes us patient.”
If
love is an available gift, it is worth nothing. On the contrary, people grow up
in love, which means learning how to love fully day by day. Love helps train,
convert, renew and purify us. Love actually trains us step by step to help us
behave towards the others more kindly , more tolerantly, more sympathetically
and always willingly forgive the others , because love is like a green bud that
needs to be nurtured, carefully cultivated, tenderly cut to grow up and bear
fruit greatly.
Starting
his apology, Pope Francis not only affirmed the role and the way of training of
love but also openly identified himself as a student in the school of love, and
the lesson he was attentively learning, practicing, trying his best to practice
is “patience in love”. He humbly knows that his old age, his poor health, and
his burden of a shepherd for the flock sometimes become too heavy to carry and
beyond his limits. He is also strongly aware of his limitation as a human being
and knows that he has not been patient enough in the mission of love and
sacrifice for the entrusted flock.
That
is the reason why he started the New Year's Mass with the Penitential Act : I
confess to almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have
angrily beaten the woman’s hand last night because of my impatience in love.
2. “So many times we lose patience” :
“Being
impatient" is just because we are not "completely holy", so do
the ones we love. We are still "human beings" with many faults and
bad habits. When two imperfect people love each other, two people who are
unworthy love each other or two weak people love each other with the desire to
reach the ideal or absolute excellence, they easily lose their temper because
of their shortcomings or mistakes, even the insults that hurt each other.
Therefore,
onour journey of love as human beings, we still have to learn patience because
patience always is the great challenge of love to overcome. Evedentially, the
main cause in broken affairs or relationships is that the two people are not
patient enough to love each other.
In
this way, we find out Jesus affirms to His disciples with His extremely patient
love that He loves them to the end. We are sure that Pope Francis is always
mindful about Jesus’ teachings and tries to live his "love to the
end", but on the night of December 31 2019, Pope Francis might lose his
patience because of becoming so exhausted about walking on the long street to
greet a lot of people with the hand strickly shaken by that woman.
3. “I do, too…”
I
think it is really a nice and kind image of the leader of the Catholic Church
with the humble and sincere apology from the bottom of his heart . It was not
the fault of deliberately harming anyone, not the serious fault of hurting
someone, neither the serious fault that adversely affects the reputation of the
individual or the collective, but the fault was that an eighty-four-year-old
man was so deadly exhausted with his hand that was tightly shaken beyond his
endurance to calmly keep his gentle smile and happy face.
Indeed,
what happened to Pope Francis is “the fault of a human being with a lot of
limitations” in the sacrifice sacrificed to the end for the flock or “the fault
of a fragile man” who takes up an abundance of responsibilities to carry out
the mission of love to the others.
4. “I apologize for yesterday's bad example”
The
Mass of The First Day of New Year 2020 takes place so sacredly with the lively,
humble, sincere Penitential Act of Pope Francis, the successor of St.Peter the Apostle,
the head of the Catholic. Truly, this is the best confession ever of a pope in
the history of the Catholic Church ; the confession that gets much respect from
the others, the confession that becomes unforgettable ever, the confession that
becomes a good lessons for its value, its charisma and its impression.
The
Holy Father humbly thought of himself as being an bad example, but it has
becomes a shining example of the self-forgetting spirit of “the Lamb of God,
who takes away of the sins of the world” as a person in such a high position in
the society, who courageously apologized for making a bad example for the
flock.
Pope
Francis acknowledges that he has set a bad example and given an apology, for he
has a simple spirit of love, and a humble manner in the mission of service.
Thanks to the simplicity and humbleness and his heart at peace, he easily
recognizes himself as a person of many shortcomings; imperfectness and
limitations, who always needs support and mercy from the others, and especially
when peacefully giving the apology from the depths of the good Shepherd's heart
, he was ready to “go down to the very end” and to give himself for the flock.
My
Loving God,
I,
together with all the faithful in the Catholic Church, thank You for granting us
Pope Francis, the shepherd of selfless love and humble service. Because of
trying his best to serve the flock, he takes a chance of “an error occurred to
him” to erase himself for the love of the flock to the end through his humbly
bowing his head and striking his breast for the apology.
Like
millions of other Catholic faithful with the deep love for Our Holy Father in
the early days of the year, I continue to pray for him and like to say to him
that "We always love you, Pope Francis!".