The French term for hospital, Hotel-Dieu, translates into English as “House of God.”  Usually sponsored by religious groups and often operated by nuns or representatives of the church, hospitals served originally as places of care for the suffering, triage centers for those wounded in battle, and hospice facilities that offer solace and peace to the dying.  When Pope Francis, early in his pontificate, referred to the church as a “field hospital” he implied that our worship spaces as well as our members ought to meet people where they are to provide healing aid and comfort.  He was, I think, referencing not only the war-torn enterprise he was commissioned to lead after scandals of mass pedophilia, financial malfeasance, poor ecclesial leadership on every continent, and a litany of disgraceful crimes, but was especially thinking of common people who are embattled by daily challenges.

Pope Francis spent most of his final Lent in a hospital.  There he wrote this pensive rumination (paraphrased): “The walls of hospitals have heard more honest prayers than churches. They have witnessed far more sincere kisses than at airports.  It is in hospitals that you see a homophobe being saved by a gay doctor or a privileged doctor saving the life of a beggar.  In intensive care you see a racist being cared for by a Jew, a police officer and a prisoner in the same room receiving the same care, a wealthy patient waiting for a liver transplant, ready to receive the organ from a poor donor.  It is in these moments—when the hospital touches the wounds of people—that different worlds intersect according to a divine design.  And in this communion of destinies, we realize that alone we are nothing.  People’s truth is revealed in moments of pain or threat of irreversible loss.  A hospital is a place where human beings remove their masks and show themselves as they truly are, in their purest essence. Earthly life passes quickly, and perfection does not exist in this world.  Human beings cannot attain it because we are simply not made to be fulfilled here.  But here we are given the opportunity to learn and prepare for the world that awaits.  So, make the most of it, respect yourself and respect others.  Do not judge others or interfere as they try to do the best they can.  Love more, forgive more, embrace more, live more intensely.  And leave the rest in the hands of the Creator!”

It is a wonderful final message to receive from a good shepherd who wanted our churches to function as hospitals, or houses of God, across the fields that form dioceses and parishes throughout our international landscape.  We were fortunate to have had Pope Francis as our spiritual father for twelve years; he will be missed immensely by millions.  His passage could not have been scripted any better than it played out, as he emerged from the hospital while Lent turned to Holy Week.  As he reflected upon the Passion of Christ one final time, so did he live it.  Then he greeted the crowds on Easter Sunday, delivering a blessing from the same balcony where he appeared to us on the night he was elected supreme pontiff.  Having completed all that he was here to do, pouring himself out for the church he loved and the God he served, at the end of the holiest day of the year he fell asleep in the glory of the resurrection and surrendered himself fully and finally into the hands of the Creator to rest in peace with the hope of residing eternally in the heavenly Hotel-Dieu, the House of God.