Lately, a non-Maltese friend of mine taught me an extraordinary lesson from life’s wisdom: “Life is not a revolution but evolution”. Revolution tends to be more associated with a noisy, violent and unfocused response to any kind of injustice and oppression. On the other hand, evolution refers to a rather silent, peaceful and focused address to any form of evil and distortion.

The feast of St Francis of Assisi, which falls today, brings forth the commitment to be evolutionary not revolutionary.

Like the sectarian evangelical movements of his time, St Francis was witnessing a moral, doctrinal and pastoral decay in the Church. He was deeply afflicted to see Christ’s ministers living in concubinage and wasting their precious time and energies in strategies to make them richer. Money and worldly pleasures corrupted their priestly existence. Nevertheless, contrary to the separated heretical movements that tried their utmost to expose the weakness of the Catholic hierarchy to boost themselves and their cause instead, the Poverello chose to remain loyal to the Church of Christ, specifically to the successor of St Peter. In many ways, he tried to bring renewal from within the Church. His was a peaceful, exhortative and genuine ecclesial response to restore the shepherds of Christ’s flock.

The year for priests that has just ended reminded us not merely of St Francis’s profound devotion for the Catholic clergy but also how he sought to reform it. In his Testament, the saint shows his committed love and devotion for priests. He writes: “Afterwards, the Lord gave me, and gives me still, such faith in priests who live according to the rite of the Holy Roman Church because of their orders that, were they to persecute me, I would still want to have recourse to them. And if I had as much wisdom as Solomon and found impoverished priests of this world, I would not preach in their parishes against their will. And I desire to respect, love and honour them and all others as my lords. And I do not want to consider any sin in them because I discern the Son of God in them and they are my lords. And I act in this way because, in this world, I see nothing corporally of the most high Son of God except His most holy Body and Blood, which they receive and they alone administer to others.”

One is left speechless in front of such a profound veneration for Christ’s priests. If we profess that we are Christians, why do certain quarters from the Church, society and, specifically, the media, choose to take pleasure in humiliating our priests by exposing their faults in the name of the right of expression? Can we be more sensible in helping our priests living their vocation by encouraging them to learn and adhere to the approach St Francis is humbly teaching us priests?

Let us recommit ourselves and be, with God’s incessant help, evolutionary Catholics, making our best to renew the Church according to the vocation-mission God has given us to accomplish. Much like St Francis, may we adopt his fraternal and ecclesial style of loving and respect Christ among us, particularly as he powerfully lives in his consecrated ones.

As a priest and a believer, I urge all to pray, encourage and support us priests. We need constant care and solicitude. Always keeping in our minds and hearts Christ’s authoritative word when He spoke about his anointed ministers: “He who receives you receives me and he who receives me receives him who sent me” (Mk 10, 40).

Let’s get evolutionary on the lines of St Francis!

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