José Luis Restán: Pray for Pedro

In the Acts of the Apostles it is attesting that the Church prayed intensely while Peter was being questioned by the Sanhedrin. For two thousand years, when the Pope is in danger or sick, the Christian people pray for him. Pray with consciousness … That this poor man full of limitations like all, has been called to happen to Pedro, the fisherman of Galilee, and that is something tremendous and, at the same time, beautiful for each faithful Christian. And he prays with gratitude, because that man called to be the rock, to confirm each baptized in true faith, and to be, in the words of Santa Catalina de Siena, “the sweet Christ on earth”, it always seems to be surpassed by the circumstances. And it’s not for less. His is “an impossible ministry,” As said the theologian Urs von Balthasar, “unless it makes it possible to institute it.”

Simple people, the men and women who make up the fragile but mysteriously resistant body that is the Catholic Church, pray these days for the health of Pope Francis, admitted to the Gemelli Hospital of Rome to cure the pneumonia he suffers, something that in a 88 -year -old man is no joke. I speak of the “Faithful Holy People” to which Francisco frequently refers: people may not be too learned or morally perfect, who does not preferably dedicate himself to discussing, but tries to live from faith, which falls and rises. They are those that are not trap “The Pope is the Pope”, Instead of devoting note or even trying to save him from his mistakes. Of the latter we have always had some in Hispanic history. Well, that vast majority, although it does not make noise (maybe it should do a little more), it is praying more intensity because something serious and also quite common in the history of the Church happens: that an old Pope is sick. In “discreet conditions,” said the first medical part, which translates in Román Paladino: there is a reason to worry.

Of course, The Church does not break down because the Pope is sick, It is not more agitated than the account when it is time to die, which comes to everyone. It has happened a few times already, and the boat continues because the Lord takes it. But, meanwhile, we thank for the dedication and sacrifice of Pope Francis and we insistently ask for his life and ministry.

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