For the last few days I have been absorbed with Pope Francis’ latest encyclical “Fratelli Tutti”.
I realized that in many ways I was involved in working on something larger than a mere1,000 piece picture puzzle.
In my puzzling days I would tackle puzzles, no matter what size, by emptying the box on the table and turning every piece face up. Next I would study the picture on the box taking notice of important characteristics. Then I would cluster the pieces with similar colors. Only then would work begin in earnest. All through this process I would be glancing at the image on the box as a reference point.
The image of a puzzle helped me to another level of understanding about our common humanity.
Reading the encyclical as a puzzle
I find Pope Francis’ use of images enticing and challenging. I was looking forward to the challenge. So, I emptied the pieces of this box on the table of my mind by reading it very quickly.
The first chapter “Dark Clouds over A Closed World” amounted to putting all the pieces on the table face-up. It presents an almost overwhelming description of multitude of probems in an increasingly polarized world.
Chapter two, “A Stranger On the Road”, uses the story the Good Samaritan as an example to present the “big picture” of God’s dream of our common humanity as sons and daughters, sisters and brothers. This has become for me the cover on the box to which I will return as a reference point for the other sections of the puzzle.
In the remaining chapters, he unpacks a vision of what the world might look like in God’s eyes. As I read each subsequent chapter I kept referring back to the cover image of the stranger who stops.
Chapter three “Envisioning and engendering an Open World”, presents a world where we move beyond the original fault of self-centeredness recognizing the worth of every human person.
Chapter four “A Heart open to the Whole world” is an invitation to see the many issues in a new light and to develop new responses.
Chapter five calls for a better kind of politics, one truly at the service of the common good. Sadly, politics today often takes forms that hinder progress towards the world God created us to sshape.
Chapter six challenges us to rethink the importance and practice of dialogue in living out God’s dream for the human community.
Chapter seven gets practical about the many open wounds in the world. It calls for peacemakers, men and women prepared to work boldly and creatively, to initiate processes of healing and renewed encounter.
Chapter eight address the common role of all religions in working toward creating such a world.
I read each chapter in light of the master image of coming to one another’s aid regardless of tribal affiliations.
Unfortunately, I fear that many will focus only on one small section of the puzzle missing the big picture of God’s dream.
Pope Francis offers this final prayer…
Lord, Father of our human family,
you created all human beings equal in dignity:
pour forth into our hearts a fraternal spirit
and inspire in us a dream of renewed encounter,
dialogue, justice and peace.
Move us to create healthier societies
and a more dignified world,
a world without hunger, poverty, violence and war.
May our hearts be open
to all the peoples and nations of the earth.
May we recognize the goodness and beauty
that you have sown in each of us,
and thus forge bonds of unity, common projects,
and shared dreams. Amen.
Click below for an audio version of this Vincentian Mindwalk
Puzzle. Sometimes, more crossword puzzle than jigsaw puzzle. Trying to understand the nuanced meanings behind the words chosen.
I am reminded of a recent meme that showed a broken image and the person was trying to put back together the pieces. The wisdom of that meme instructed the broken person to find the most valuable pieces and build a new image from them. That reflection seems to fit Francis also and the pandemic as well. Not all of the old pieces are going to fit. Take the ones that do and create a better image than what was.
Francis, of course, was more eloquent than that. I fear the encyclical will get “boiled down” to a few talking points and forgotten like so many others that preceded it. Only scholars will take the time to read it in its entirety and extract quotes from time to time. A sad reality that we all face. Some of our best work in life will become merely a footnote much later.
Keep us focused on the good stuff and how to make the good stuff into better stuff.
Fr John, your creative analogy of a puzzle and helpful unpacking of FRATELLI TUTTI is adding more layers to my initial reading and understanding . Many thanks.
Reading Plan B
I just reread Pope Francis’s introduction in paragraphs #3-4 (St. Francis’s visit with the Sultan).
It might be just as helpful to read these two paragraphs before reading each of the later chapters.
4. Francis did not wage a war of words aimed at imposing doctrines; he simply spread the love of God… Indeed, “only the man who approaches others, not to draw them into his own life, but to help them become ever more fully themselves, can truly be called a father”.[4]
I have ordered a copy in book form and am anxious to read it slowly with a highlighter in hand. I am also going to suggest to some friends that perhaps we can meet to discuss it.
This puzzle image is very helpful, Fr. John. Thank you for your vision.
I also love the Good Samaritan reflection. Your insight is helpful. We are
currently studying Laudato Sí with the Seminary Sisters and they can’t wait
to get into Fratelli Tutti. Blessings on your writing ministry, such a gift to us.
Besides the poster outside our apartment door with the words Black Lives Matter, I’m adding Pope Francis’ final prayer on a background of American Indians motifs. I hear that people in the building stop and read what my husband and I hang outside.
That prayer embraces all of us, human beings!
Does anyone know whether the translation of “All Brothers” is really the “official translation” of Fratelli Tutti, given by the Vatican? As a translator myself, living in 2020, I would translate “All Brothers and Sisters”.
Thank you to anyone who’d like to answer.