6 hours Ago By Kevin Stephon Centeno
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rapplerAds.displayAd( "mobile-middle-1" );With great sadness in our hearts, Pope Francis passed away on April 21, Easter Monday. Personally, Pope Francis has transformed my understanding of the nature and mission of the Church.
His heartfelt proclamation of God’s boundless mercy redirected me to the very heart of the Gospel no matter how challenging it might be to incarnate mercy. He has also inspired me to become a Jesuit, to become a companion of the merciful face of the Father, Jesus Christ. An unforgettable scene in the ministry of Pope Francis that moved me to tears was when he consoled a little boy who asked whether his atheist father is in heaven or not during a question-and-answer session with children at St.
Paul of the Cross parish in Rome. At first, the boy was shy to ask the question publicly until the Pope invited him to come and whisper the question to him. The boy sobbing went up to the platform.
The Pope embraced him and they started conversing. True to his heart as a pastor, he responded: “What do you think? A father’s heart. God has a dad’s heart.
And with a dad who was not a believer, but who baptized his children and gave them that bravura, do you think God would be able to leave him far from himself?” “God is the one who says who goes to heaven,” he further explained. When he asked if God abandons his children, the children shouted in response: “No!” “God surely was proud of your father, because it is easier as a believer to baptize your children than to baptize them when you are not a believer. Surely this pleased God very much,” the Pope told the boy.
Growing up in my faith, I became obsessed with the question of salvation. One of the first things that I learned about the Catholic Church is that it is a way for me to be saved or to go to heaven. Be baptized as a Catholic, learn about the faith, and do good works, then my salvation is assured.
I was conscious of ever committing a mortal sin for it will automatically consign me to hell. I saw the confession as a vacuum-cleaner. If I die with my sins forgiven, then I’ll be accepted into heaven.
There was this sense in me of winning my personal salvation. In other words, my good works will save me. I’ll be saved, because I’m worthy.
I imagined St. Peter at the gate of heaven holding a record of the good and bad works I’ve done. I always hoped that my good works would outweigh my bad works.
At the same time, I felt unworthy of heaven for I might haven’t done enough good works to deserve it. As I learned more about the faith by reading theology, my understanding of salvation broadened. Salvation is first and foremost a gift, a grace.
It is not earned. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul says clearly: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast.” (Eph.
2:8-9) As a gift, it’s freely offered to everyone. Ultimately, my goodness and my entire being come from God. Who am I to boast of my good works before God whose grace empowers me to be and do good in the first place? I realized that before God’s sheer graciousness and love, I am a worthless slave who has done only what I ought to do.
(Luke 17:10) This Gospel verse might literally sound harsh and cold, yet its point is deep. Salvation cannot be attained through human efforts alone. I can never save myself.
Realizing this is a humbling experience.If salvation is essentially a gracious gift from God, can we hope for the salvation of all men and women? A line that strikes me so much from the Eucharist Prayer IV prays like this: “Remember also those who have died in the peace of your Christ and all the dead, whose faith you alone have known.” So much hope from the Mass! I believe that God can read and penetrate the innermost chamber of our hearts.
And, God is so merciful, prodigally merciful. Of course, hell as affirmed by the Church remains an existential possibility. Humans can damn themselves by rejecting God and succumbing to non-being, but we should remember that the God of pure love never punishes and condemns.
I noticed that whenever someone we admire, love, and personally know passes away, we have the tendency to confidently say that he or she is in heaven. I experienced this as I lost my beloved grandparents. Where is my confidence that they are in heaven coming from? Am I not assuming? Salvation is not empirically verifiable.
Perhaps, my confidence that they are in heaven comes from my faith and hope in God’s saving grace though I cannot actually prove it. There is this interesting book written by the Swiss theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar provocatively titled Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved? Is Balthasar denying the existence of hell and advocating an extreme doctrine of universal salvation? Nope. He is hoping that all men and women be saved.
Hope. I share in his hope that all men and women be saved by God. Haven’t you noticed that our prayers for the dead are permeated with hopefulness? Our prayers for the departed are our expressions of hope in the merciful and loving God.
When Pope Francis was asked in an interview on Italian television how he imagines hell if he believes in an all-forgiving God, he replied: “It’s difficult to imagine it...
What I would say is not a dogma of faith, but my personal thought: I like to think hell is empty; I hope it is.” Early in his papacy, he preached in one of his morning Masses God’s salvific will for everyone: God “has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone!” And this includes “even the atheists.
.. Everyone!” As we enter into the glorious season of Easter, we are once again called to hope in the Risen Lord, our merciful and loving Savior.
In the Risen Lord, there is hope for salvation! Pope Francis beautifully proclaims the mercy of Jesus revealed in the Resurrection: “Before the spiritual and moral abysses of mankind, before the chasms that open up in hearts and provoke hatred and death, only an infinite mercy can bring us salvation. Only God can fill those chasms with His love, prevent us from falling into them and help us to continue our journey together towards the land of freedom and life.” Yes, only an infinite mercy can bring us salvation and we dare to hope! window.
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displayAd( "mobile-middle-2" );Why did Pope Francis emphasize the message of God’s mercy so much? Where was he coming from? Definitely, he felt mercy, in Ignatian language he had an “interior knowledge” of God’s mercy. This experience of God’s mercy is essential in the identity of a Jesuit, a sinner called by God. In the words of a document of the General Congregation 36 of the Society of Jesus, “At the heart of Ignatian spirituality is the transforming encounter with the mercy of God in Christ that moves us to a generous personal response.
The experience of the merciful gaze of God on our weakness and sinfulness humbles us and fills us with gratitude, helping us to become compassionate ministers to all.”We thank God for the gift of Pope Francis. We pray for the grace that we may be messengers of mercy and hope following in his footsteps.
In loving memory of Lolo KikoKevin Stephon Centeno is a Jesuit scholastic. Born in Oriental Mindoro, he obtained his bachelor’s degree in philosophy and spent five years of seminary formation at Saint Augustine Seminary in Calapan City. His views do not represent the position of the entire Society of Jesus.
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