"A Stranger and You Welcomed Me" – Back On "the Outskirts," Francis "Anoints" Lampedusa

(SVILUPPO: The video-box below now goes to the on-demand footage of the visit in its entirety.)

For those checking in early, buongiorno and Happy Monday – the Pope has arrived at the refugee port at Lampedusa: his first trip since his March election, one intended (in the words of his secretary) to "weep for the dead" and comfort the living.

Some 20,000 migrants have died on making the journey to the island, a common gateway to Europe located off the Sicilian coast at the continent's southern edge.

A half-hour earlier than planned, the Vatican video-feed went live in the run-up to a 10am Mass for which several items – including Francis' lectern, pastorale (crozier) and chalice – have been made from the remains of the wrecked ships piled up off the island's coast:



Following a visit to the local parish and meeting with migrants, the loosely-scheduled visit is slated to wrap up by 1pm local time... emphasis on "slated," however, as reports last night indicated a bit of friction between what the visitor wanted to do and his handlers' comfort-level with it.

Further updates to follow, both in the main and with the restored "Page Three" (right sidebar) doing color in real-time. For now, though, it bears repeating that on the first day of his so-called summer "holiday," Jorge Bergoglio has resumed his longstanding practice in Buenos Aires, using his vacation not as a getaway, but merely avoiding the office to spend more time "at the outskirts," where a suffering humanity lives on the margins. Only this time, he's not alone... and the transport's a bit more conspicuous than the city bus.

Of course, the charge of going to "the outskirts" is a common theme in Francis' thought and action, and something he's emphatically voiced even before his election. In his turn during the General Congregations before the Conclave, the Argentine cardinal's ascent to the papacy arguably began with his fervorino that "the church is called to come out of herself and to go to the peripheries, not only geographically, but also the existential peripheries: the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indifference to religion, of intellectual currents, and of all misery."

Three weeks later, by then become the 266th bishop of Rome, the call made for the centerpiece of Bergoglio's now widely-cited reflection on the priesthood at the Holy Thursday Chrism Mass....

A good priest can be recognized by the way his people are anointed. This is a clear test. When our people are anointed with the oil of gladness, it is obvious: for example, when they leave Mass looking as if they have heard good news. Our people like to hear the Gospel preached with “unction”, they like it when the Gospel we preach touches their daily lives, when it runs down like the oil of Aaron to the edges of reality, when it brings light to moments of extreme darkness, to the “outskirts” where people of faith are most exposed to the onslaught of those who want to tear down their faith. People thank us because they feel that we have prayed over the realities of their everyday lives, their troubles, their joys, their burdens and their hopes. And when they feel that the fragrance of the Anointed One, of Christ, has come to them through us, they feel encouraged to entrust to us everything they want to bring before the Lord: “Pray for me, Father, because I have this problem”, “Bless me”, “Pray for me” – these words are the sign that the anointing has flowed down to the edges of the robe, for it has turned into prayer. The prayers of the people of God. When we have this relationship with God and with his people, and grace passes through us, then we are priests, mediators between God and men. What I want to emphasize is that we need constantly to stir up God’s grace and perceive in every request, even those requests that are inconvenient and at times purely material or downright banal – but only apparently so – the desire of our people to be anointed with fragrant oil, since they know that we have it. To perceive and to sense, even as the Lord sensed the hope-filled anguish of the woman suffering from hemorrhages when she touched the hem of his garment. At that moment, Jesus, surrounded by people on every side, embodies all the beauty of Aaron vested in priestly raiment, with the oil running down upon his robes. It is a hidden beauty, one which shines forth only for those faith-filled eyes of the woman troubled with an issue of blood. But not even the disciples – future priests – see or understand: on the “existential outskirts”, they see only what is on the surface: the crowd pressing in on Jesus from all sides (cf. Lk 8:42). The Lord, on the other hand, feels the power of the divine anointing which runs down to the edge of his cloak.

We need to “go out,” then, in order to experience our own anointing, its power and its redemptive efficacy: to the “outskirts” where there is suffering, bloodshed, blindness that longs for sight, and prisoners in thrall to many evil masters. It is not in soul-searching or constant introspection that we encounter the Lord: self-help courses can be useful in life, but to live by going from one course to another, from one method to another, leads us to become pelagians and to minimize the power of grace, which comes alive and flourishes to the extent that we, in faith, go out and give ourselves and the Gospel to others, giving what little ointment we have to those who have nothing, nothing at all.

A priest who seldom goes out of himself, who anoints little – I won’t say “not at all” because, thank God, our people take our oil from us anyway – misses out on the best of our people, on what can stir the depths of his priestly heart. Those who do not go out of themselves, instead of being mediators, gradually become intermediaries, managers. We know the difference: the intermediary, the manager, “has already received his reward”, and since he doesn’t put his own skin and his own heart on the line, he never hears a warm, heartfelt word of thanks. This is precisely the reason why some priests grow dissatisfied, become sad priests, lose heart and become in some sense collectors of antiques or novelties – instead of being shepherds living with “the smell of the sheep”, shepherds in the midst of their flock, fishers of men. True enough, the so-called crisis of priestly identity threatens us all and adds to the broader cultural crisis; but if we can resist its onslaught, we will be able to put out in the name of the Lord and cast our nets. It is not a bad thing that reality itself forces us to “put out into the deep”, where what we are by grace is clearly seen as pure grace, out into the deep of the contemporary world, where the only thing that counts is “unction” – not function – and the nets which overflow with fish are those cast solely in the name of the One in whom we have put our trust: Jesus.

And, well, what is the Roman pontiff if not the successor of a fisherman?

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