The strength to break the shell

“Evangelization occurs when we have the courage to ‘break’ the jar containing the fragrance”, Pope Francis said in his discourse to bishops, priests, consecrated peple, seminarians and catechists in Dili cathedral.

The Bible passage quoted by the Pope is that of Mary who breaks the jar containing perfumed oil, to anoint Jesus’ feet, a scene that is very dear to Pope Francis who has often used the dimension of smell in his imaginative language. But there is another image that he used in the same phrase which is striking, that of “breaking the ‘shell’ that often closes us in on ourselves, of leaving behind a lazy and comfortable religiosity that only serves our personal needs”.

In response to the temptation of comfortable and self-centered laziness, the Pope uses the same words used by Sr Rosa in her testimony: “a Church on the move, a Church that does not stand still, does not revolve around itself — no, it does not revolve around itself — but burns with passion to bring the joy of the Gospel to all”. Sr Rosa’s words corroborate the Pope’s vision of an “outward bound Church”, which is an image that the Pope has been using for more than 11 years in addressing the faithful. It is thus necessary, indeed even urgent, to have the strength to break the shell. Shells like nests and lairs are warm, welcoming, vital images, but they can also transform into their opposite, and become cold, buffers and deadly.

The gesture of breaking the shell brings to mind another exotic and effective image, that of the lobster. This animal known to everyone for the mostruosity of its shape and the delicacy of its flesh, develops a very interesting vital process. Lobsters, in fact, are born naked and the “armour”that covers them, grows gradually at a later stage. The “armour” or shell, an exoskeleton, a superstructure, defends the mollusc, but also traps it and finally tortures it. At a certain point, the shell becomes too tight and the lobster will have to get rid of it.

It will “have to break the shell” and go back to being a naked and vulnerable mollusc, until a new “structure” will be formed. Only in this way, with the return to its original fragile nudity, will the lobster be able to continue to live. This does not only happen once, but is repeated several times in their life span. The lobster continuously “dies and is reborn” and is thus one of the longest living animals on earth, living up to 130 years. An interesting essay written by Professor Stefano De Matteis addresses this very theme. Its title is “The dilemma of the lobster”. Its subtitle is even more interesting: “The strength of vulnerability”. There is a moment, in fact, in which the lobster is nude, defenceless and powerless, when it transitions from an old shell, by then broken, to a new one, but it is precisely that moment that marks its tenacious vitality, its strength “for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10).

Ever since the beginning of her history and the Gospels themselves, the Church has used many images to make her mystery understandable to her self-awareness. The Pope’s expression of “breaking the shell” paves the way for another image, the lobster. As she travels across the rough seas of the world, the Church too needs to strip herself, to return to the original nudity, to shake herself from defensive superfluous elements and to re-focus on what is essential, in the knowledge that, as the Pope has often repeated, the Church is not at the centre of the Church.

He repeated it again in Dili, when he said that Timor-Leste is at the “edge of the world”: “I also come from the ends of the world, but you more than me. And I like to say it — precisely because it is at the edge of the world, it is at the centre of the Gospel! This is a paradox that we have to learn: in the Gospel, the peripheries are the centre and a Church that has no capacity for peripheries and that hides in the centre is a very ill Church […] when a Church thinks beyond, sends out missionaries, it goes into those peripheries that are the centre, the Church’s centre. Thank you for being at the peripheries, for we know well that in the heart of Christ the ‘existential peripheries’ are the centre. Indeed, the Gospel is full of people, figures and stories that are on the margins, on the borders, but are called by Jesus to become protagonists of the hope that he came to bring us”.

This is what the Pope told the joyful people of Dili, and this is how the Church has always behaved in her 2000 years of history, running the inherent risk of the process of disarmament and spoliation. And this is why she has endured for so long, continuously changing her exterior shape, and at the same time maintaining her heart intact, that sweet and perfumed flesh that is hidden and kept in its most intimate intimacy and is the flesh of Christ and his Gospel. In this image, there are all the challenges that the Church, led by Pope Francis, has had to face over the last years, both burning with the passion of bringing the joy of the Gospel.

Andrea Monda

Andrea Monda