Some troubled the believers by saying: “Unless you have yourselves circumcised in the tradition of Moses you cannot be saved”

This was a clear and uncompromising (but upsetting) message sent from HQ in Jersalem to the Greek outpost of the Christian community in Antioch. Two weeks ago the Greek Orthodox Church expected a similar kind of hardline statement  from Pope John Paul as he was about to make the first visit of a Roman Pontiff to Greece for 1300 years. Barricades went up ... physical, emotional and religious. But as with the early Church, so now with today’s Church, the Holy Spirit decides, inspires and renews the face of the earth, with a change of heart rather than entrenched positions, with respect and understanding of our differences instead of bigotry and criticism.

The Pope travelled in the footsteps of Barnabas and Paul, Judas and Silas. I attended a lecture earlier this year in Oxford given by the Pope’s biographer, George Weigel. He said that in the line of Popes going back to St Peter there had only been two who were given the title, “The Great”: Leo the Great and Gregory the Great...and it could well be that Pope John Paul will have the same title conferred on him in time. Our Lord’s words suit this Pope comfortably: “My word is not my own; it is the word of the one who sent me”, “...the Holy Spirit will remind you of all I have said to you...”, “my own peace I give you, a peace the world cannot give.”

Both eminent and ordinary world leaders try and try again and fail and fail again, to make peace... and yet a frail, elderly man suffering from Parkinson’s desease, whom the world regularly writes off as ailing and out of touch, travels on yet another pilgrimage of fatih and brings peace, the peace of Christ, by turning people back to their hearts: “Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.”

It is a message of encouragement and, as ever with the gospels, a challenge for you and me to do likewise. We each of us may have a wound, a division in our lives between us and a loved one maybe, which we cannot heal. Perhaps we think reconciliation is not possible because of entrenched attitudes and barricades between us. Yet the gospel encourages us to pray and do something about it, to listen in our hearts to the voice of the Holy Spirit, then to follow in the path of the apostles to make pece. “Peace I bequeath to you; a peace the world cannot give, this is my gift to you.”

Listen to the language of those who reported on last week’s pilgrimage to Greece: “our hatred aginst Islam was very much based on buried anxieties about our own behaviour. We conducted a gratuitous and brutal war against Islam and then portrayed Islam as violent and aggressive. Eventually western supremicism created the backlash of Islamic fundamentalism which is such a danger to the modern world.”

Lack of peace in our own hearts, a sense of fear and insecurity, a trench mentality that sees any approaching stranger as an enemy rather than a pilgrim, accuse and shoot on sight - and keep your heart well hidden and protected behind camouflage and flack jackets. And the individual culprit who began it wasn’t the sniper who fired the first shot, but me, when my subtle and cunning aggression in mind and heart brought out his weapon as a last resort against my war of emotional and psychological harrassment.

It has taken 1300 years for Church officialdom to climb down and open its heart and say sorry, but it can never to too late to say it and do it with confidence in the Holy Spirit, who gently appplies the ointment of reconciliation. It may have taken you weeks or years to think of climbing down, of opening your heart and apologising, especially if, in human terms, you feel the fault wasn’t yours. (Though perhaps some of it on reflection was your fault, through provocation or neglect or misunderstanding.) But today is the day to follow John Paul the Great and to become great yourself - frail and feeble in your faith yet called gently to take the first step in the peace process. Lift up your heart! Open your heart! “Come, O Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful... and unfaithful alike.”

“Peace be with you. Peace I bring you; my own peace I give you. This is my gift to you.                    -FBL

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