My one forever-memory of Pope Francis will probably always be associated with a Johnny-on-the-Spot. A port-a-john. The porta-potty. (What is the official name for such things?)
When the Holy Father came to Washington D.C. in September 2015, I was a third-year seminarian at the time, and our entire St. Mary’s community was given exclusive passes to see him in the Basilica Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. We probably would have, too, had a flat tire on the bus and strict occupancy codes from the Secret Service not prevented our entry once we finally got through security, almost an hour behind schedule.
Thus, we students from the Baltimore seminary were forced to wait outside the basilica with those who weren’t fortunate enough to have passes, most of them because they wore no religious habits or Roman collars. As that outdoor crowd swelled, my precarious position near the side entrance to the Shrine shifted closer and closer to the outer-edge of the secured grounds, right next to the portable toilets. Twenty gray plastic containers of stench sitting in the warm September sun.
There I stood for more than three hours, unable to see a blessed thing on giant screens which happened to be turned away from me, nor could I hear the outdoor sound system. But, boy, could I smell all that the crowd offered to my little corner of the papal visit world.
I was disappointed, bordering on angry. I was tired and hungry (well, I was hungry before my location change). Like many of my seminarian classmates forced to endure the same fate by the bathrooms, I was half-tempted to give-up, leave the Shrine grounds and watch the pomp-and-circumstance from a bar-and-restaurant TV somewhere down the street.
But then I thought about Francis: this new pope from the Americas who told us in one of his first addresses that as shepherds and as a Church, we must at all times smell like the sheep. Sheep stink like port-a-johns. They are often dirty and lost. They roam in packs. They get attacked easily. They can be skittish and not always the brightest of the animal kingdom’s shining stars.
So, thinking of the sheep – of which I am one -- I stayed and prayed. Prayed for Pope Francis and our beloved divine-and-very-human Church. Prayed for every person who waited on line to use the bathroom that afternoon. Prayed for the countless souls suffering in every way imaginable – ways that Christ himself went to the Cross to redeem and save.
I prayed for the ones that Christ never gives up on – which is every single one of us.
What strikes me so powerfully about the Gospel reading for this Divine Mercy Sunday is a tiny detail that John seemingly throws in and is quite easy to miss with all the other incredible moments of this “Searching-Thomas” resurrection account: Christ came through locked doors not just once but twice. Doors that were locked even after he had already appeared to the disciples gathered in prayer and fear. Doors shut to the world.
Why do we keep doors shut when Christ already came through to open them?
It’s a powerful question that I first must ask myself, in my own journey of faith and relationship with God: what part of my heart and life am I forcing closed that God wants to open? What am I trying to lock away from Him? In what ways am I still trying to hide behind closed doors from His Mercy? Is there a sin or a wound that I feel that I can’t let Him see and heal? Is there still a part of me that I won’t let Him have?
I’ve been there often, and I know others have as well: the part of my life and my ways of thinking which scream, “God could never forgive me for this … or love me when I am like this …” All the lies Satan has us tell ourselves, lies that keep us behind closed doors, afraid and broken.
The message of Divine Mercy, the very essence of our God, is one that cries out: Unlock the door of fear. Unlock the door of self-loathing. Let in the One who offers wholeness and completeness, the Shalom (the true Peace) of God.
It is Divine Mercy that invites us time and again: Put your wounds into My Sacred Ones and let them be transformed. Put your sins and brokenness at My Cross and let them be completely forgiven. As John says in our second reading from the Book of Revelation: fall at His feet, let Him touch you with His Love, and no longer be afraid.
This is the Heart of Mercy. This is Christ Resurrected. This is why Christ will keep coming through the locked doors of our lives and hearts, for Love never stops crying out to us: surrender your wounds to Him and go forth unafraid. Once we understand this personally – and start living it on our own faith journey -- we can start embracing it as a Church. When all is said and done, I believe that was the heart of Pope Francis’ mission.
Say what you will (and many do): our former Holy Father was too hard on conservative Catholics; was unfriendly toward those who wanted to celebrate the Latin Mass; cared too much about the environment and not enough about Church tradition; sometimes muddied the waters of Catholic Truth in his off-the-cuff airplane interviews and calling of synods. The list could continue. I will leave it to scholars more knowledgeable than I to compose the lasting legacy of our 266th pope.
However, I will offer his: he never stopped challenging us as the Church to unlock the doors to fear and self-imposed safety and let Mercy guide our way forward. He called us to smell like the sheep by never being afraid to love the sheep in all their many woolen messes. He wanted us never to circle the wagons, but instead to break down the barriers and invite others into our hearts and lives. To be Church with and for one another – no exceptions.
For Francis, we are only Church when all are here with us: not just the saintly ones, but the ones who struggle every day with sin; the ones who are doubting and confused; the ones who only come for ashes once a year; the sheep whose lives don’t fit the Baltimore Catechism definition of holiness.
For Francis, smelling like the sheep meant being willing to stay in the messiness of another’s life and loving them back to God’s Shalom … to His peace … no matter how long it takes. It’s the willingness to be a disciple who goes and finds Thomas and stays with him as long as it takes for him to open the locked door of his life and heart to Christ once again. It’s meeting the Woman at the Well and setting her free by offering the Living Water of Truth and Mercy, of which she will only drink when she first knows she is loved and seen, listened to and respected.
When we are a Church willing to stand alongside the Port-a-johns of life and be present in love to offer mercy, then – as Francis always saw it – we are breaking down our locked doors. And may we never stop offering the very gift our Holy Father challenged us as Church to live: to smell like the sheep.