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| (Picture originally posted on News.va.english (FB) |
Everything that the Pope had said during his goodbyes to his audience were all good words, all uplifting, all hopeful. And yet, deep inside of me, I can't help but ask 'Have we failed you, dear Pope? Have I, in my own personal way, have failed you?'
This picture brings tears to me. The source was right in putting the caption 'No words can describe this moment.' I know that the Pope is all in peace with this decision. I know that God permitted it. But still I just can't help but ask if we have failed him big time.
In the past, whenever I consider the thought of leaving a job, there's always several factors that I need to consider. And that one last factor that makes it most difficult for me to leave it is the people-factor. When you know that you will surely miss hanging out with the people who have cheered you every working day you spent in the workplace, it just makes it so difficult to leave the job. Leaving the job means leaving the people. I know there are so many ways to reach out and keep in touch with people nowadays but being physically with them, being able to smile as often as you choose or share giggles or laugh at bloopers at work, these things you can't share on FB, not real time anyways. And it takes so much courage and faith in God to turn your back from all these, just because its time for you to leave it. But in the same light, what makes it so easy for one to leave something is when what will be left is nothing but pain, or everything that weakens you and your beliefs, or something that just ain't good to you anymore.
I know that the Pope's decisions and actions are all strongly founded on God, completely selfless. I know that the amount of humility and courage he possessed to arrive to that decision can only come from God too and in no way can I relate it to my own personal experiences about leaving a job. But the question remains. Have we failed you big time, dear Pope Benedict? I wish you could tell us if there's anyway that we have hurt you so we can sorry I wish the people who were around you have realized their shortcomings towards you and have apologized for it. You are human too, capable of being hurt, being tired, being frail. And thus deserve to be loved, concretely. Not just the bows and handblessings people give you. Its the kind words too. Because you are human too.
I can't help but think about the launching day of the Pope re-activating his presence on Twitter. I was excited and couldn't help but look for people's tweets to him, to see what kind of messages they are sending him. And I can't help but feel down seeing harsh messages, like making fun of him, with total disrespect of who he represents. And I could only be console with the thought that it wasn't the Pope who's really taking care of his Twitter account and that whoever that person is would not let the Pope know about those harsh messages. But now it just keep popping up on my head: 'What if the Pope actually read those messages? Or at leasst, some of them?' It made me ponder on my own tweets to him. I wish I could have said more 'I love you.' Even if he wasn't reading it personally. I wish all the tweets to him were all 'I love you' from the world instead. Just so whoever is actually handling that account would make sure he gets that positive message. He wanted to connect to the youth. He wanted to reach out. Not just because he wanted to preach in little ways through Twitter. But because maybe he wanted to know how we feel about him. Maybe as a human, an ordinary human, he probably subconsciously wanted to feel loved too by us. Concretely. In words. To know that we believe his leadership and that we are doing our part to help our own churches. To boost him. To encourage him continue his leadership.
It makes me think that his decision to be present in the Twitter world last December was his last means of reaching out and trying to hear from us in a very direct way. Maybe he was already down at that time, if ever he was. Because I couldn't find the logic of being excited on being present on the Twitter world only to leave it just barely two months after.
I know I might be so over-thinking all these but I can't help it. A man of his age serving us for God deserves all the understanding and love from us and to think that we have failed him in our own personal ways, to entertain the thought that we may have contributed in giving birth to the thought of resignation---and have no personal direct means to tell him 'SORRY'----it just kills me.