In The Tablet this week Laurence Freeman examines Pope Francis' latest apostolic exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate - Rejoice and be Glad.
Below is an extract from the piece.
The Pope’s idea of holiness embeds a prophetic anger against the dull mediocrity of consumerist individualism but, no less, against intellectualised religiosity.
In the five short, well-crafted chapters of his new exhortation Francis speaks from a Catholic pulpit but his audience is the whole of humanity in its contemporary crisis of faith.
In the five short, well-crafted chapters of his new exhortation Francis speaks from a Catholic pulpit but his audience is the whole of humanity in its contemporary crisis of faith.
He exposes the degradation of humanity produced by empty lifestyles, conspicuous consumption and the refusal to see God in the poor and marginal.
Francis is driven by an incarnational spirituality, the defining motif of his papacy, captured in his phrase: “Reality is greater than ideas”.
Francis is driven by an incarnational spirituality, the defining motif of his papacy, captured in his phrase: “Reality is greater than ideas”.
His third apostolic exhortation – after Evangelii Gaudium and Amoris Laetitia – Gaudete et Exsultate (“Rejoice and Be Glad”) is not a theological treatise about holiness but a faith-filled pitch for promoting the desire for holiness.
To explain why this desire should bring true happiness, in contrast to the isolating superficialities of consumerism, Francis reminds us that holiness is not about individual moral perfection or the approval of others.
“Not everything a saint says is completely faithful to the Gospel,” he reminds us. We need to contemplate the totality of a saint’s life.
“Not everything a saint says is completely faithful to the Gospel,” he reminds us. We need to contemplate the totality of a saint’s life.
The first saints he mentions by name are women and he writes of a “feminine style” of holiness.
He illustrates the theme of an incarnational, experiential holiness with the example of a woman who goes shopping, extricates herself from a gossipy conversation, comes home exhausted but gives her attention to a needy child and then ends her day in quiet prayer.
He illustrates the theme of an incarnational, experiential holiness with the example of a woman who goes shopping, extricates herself from a gossipy conversation, comes home exhausted but gives her attention to a needy child and then ends her day in quiet prayer.
Holiness is not about being a special sort of person or living apart from the world but about being a good next-door neighbour, finding a more perfect way of doing what we are already doing, and doing the ordinary in an extraordinary way.
Holiness needs times of quiet, solitude and silence but “it is not healthy to love silence while fleeing interaction with others”.
Holiness needs times of quiet, solitude and silence but “it is not healthy to love silence while fleeing interaction with others”.
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