In Rome, not far from the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, there’s a Trappist monastery, built on the site where St. Paul was martyred. Part of the ancient Roman road that Paul would have walked to his execution is still there, preserved behind a chain fence.
Near the entrance is a remarkable statue. It’s St. Benedict, larger than life, greeting all those arriving with a simple gesture: he is holding his finger to his lips. The universal call for quiet, for silence. Hush.
I thought it was a not-so-subtle reminder that a monastery is a place for silence. But a friend of mine, a Benedictine oblate, saw it differently.
“It’s the first word of the Rule of St. Benedict,” she said — citing a rule that is one of the most read, most treasured, most influential pieces of literature in all Christianity. It begins with this simple command.
“Listen.”
It goes on: “Listen carefully my son to the master’s instructions and attend to them with the ear of your heart.”
Listen.
In the Gospel today, Jesus talks about hearing. “My sheep hear my voice,” he says, “and they follow me.”
But we only hear the voice of the Lord if we, in fact, listen. If we make the effort. If we turn down the noise and distractions, the interference and the buzz.
If you were anywhere near a radio or a television of a computer screen Thursday afternoon at 3 pm, and were listening, you heard something the world had never heard before.
It felt like time stood still. People around the world held their breath. We listened. And then we heard it.
Robert Francis Prevost. A boy from Chicago they called Rob, who loves the White Sox and playing tennis and wanted only one thing ever since he was six years old: to be a priest.
Now and forever, he will be known as Pope Leo XIV.
Our God, a God of astonishments and surprise, made possible what all the pundits kept saying was impossible. A man from the United States became pope.
There’s a lot that will be said and written about and analyzed about his momentous chapter in our history. But this weekend, let’s remember this:
Robert Francis Prevost listened.
When he was just a young boy, something in his heart told him, “Be a priest.” He didn’t shrug it off. He didn’t forget about it. He didn’t think there must be better ways to spend your life.
He heard another call. He listened.
He could have been an engineer or a mathematician. Instead, he joined a religious order, the Augustinians. He became a missionary. He spent his life preaching to the poor in a small diocese in Peru. He mastered Latin, Italian, Spanish and five other languages. I’ve said it often, the only Spanish I know is “Feliz Navidad.” On YouTube, you can find a video of then- Bishop Prevost singing with his people, “Feliz Navidad.” He was that kind of bishop. I pray he will be that kind of pope — a man who sings with us.
The story of his life stands before us this weekend in a meaningful way. This 4th Sunday of Easter is commonly called “Good Shepherd Sunday,” the beginning of Vocations Awareness Week. The Church often urges us to preach about vocations on this Sunday — to ask God to send more shepherds to care for his flock, to pray that more men will have the courage to listen for God’s will for their lives and, just maybe, answer the call like Robert Prevost.
I don’t have to tell you: the need is great. The priests who staff this parish, the Vocationist Fathers, are living reminders of that.
But there is another need – the need for each of us in this church to realize that vocations aren’t just for the holy, the pious, the special, the people set apart.
The reality is that every one of us here today has a vocation.
It is the very same vocation as Robert Prevost.
By virtue of our baptism, we are all missionaries. The word mission comes from the Latin “mittere,” which means “sending.”
This is our mission: We are being sent from this church, each of us, to live the Gospel.
We are being sent into a confused, conflicted, disbelieving world to bring Jesus. To remind the world of possibility and love and dignity. To stand before the cynics and doubters — and proclaim hope.
The hope that we call The Good News.
The hope that is the pulsing heart of this Easter season — the triumph of life over death, of hope over despair.
The hope that cries out “Alleluia!”
I believe that’s one of the reasons God has given us Pope Leo at this moment. He is a reminder and a challenge. He says: We have work to do.
When he first greeted the world on Thursday, Pope Leo called on his brother cardinals to be missionaries — and he extended that invitation to the world.
“Let us go forward,” he said. “Christ goes before us. The world needs his light,” he said. “Let us help each other to build bridges, with dialogue, with encounter, uniting us all to be one people always at peace.”
“Let us pray together,” he said, “for this new mission.”
This weekend, as we give thanks to Almighty God for our new Pope, and pray for his mission, remember that singular vocation of each of us – to bring the Gospel into the world, to live as missionaries, making Christ known by how we live and how we love.
How will we make our Lord visible in the world today?
It begins, I believe, by going back to that image of St. Benedict, standing before the world with a finger to his lips and a message in his heart.
“Listen.”
All great work starts with listening.
Because God has something to tell us, a mission for us to do.
Saturday morning, Pope Leo addressed the College of Cardinals and said:
“It is up to us to be docile listeners to his voice…mindful that God loves to communicate himself, not in the roar of thunder and earthquakes, but in the ‘whisper of a gentle breeze’ or, as some translate it, in a ‘sound of sheer silence.’”
The holy Father told us: “Christ goes before us.” In a special way, in the Eucharist we are about to receive, he goes with us and is a part of us.
The good shepherd is always close. Listen for his voice!
It just might change our lives.
It could even change the world.
