The Existence of the Pastor Is Expressed in Dialogue
The death of our pastor reminds us of his entire journey as a priest: his hopes, his work, his discreet and laborious elderly years. The Lord called him precisely when he was about to go to carry out his ministry, the ministry he never stopped rendering: hearing confessions. Behind that intense life, of his activities and concerns, he had—as every pastor—a dialogue with the Lord. It is the dialogue between Jesus and his disciple. A dialogue that begins with a glance, a word: “Follow me,” and continues to grow throughout a lifetime. The existence of the pastor is expressed in that dialogue, an existence that, in its deep intimacy, only the two of them know; and they walk together through this existence. The dialogue between the pastor and his Lord takes a lifetime and is always projected further on: toward the people of God whom he must serve, and toward eternity.
We recently heard, in the Gospel, how this dialogue has a bit of miracle, of silence … and a lot of love. The pastor knows that he is before his Lord and for that “none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they realized it was the Lord” (Jn 21:12). They had known him with that certainty that only the heart provides, when love purifies one’s glance: “It is the Lord” (v. 7). And this is so because, beyond the miracle, the silence and the certainty, the dialogue between the pastor and his Lord is a dialogue of love, a dialogue of love between two pastors: “Do you love me?” “Tend my sheep” (v. 16). The pastor remains almost perplexed in his love: on the one hand looking at his Lord, who asks him to profess his love, and on the other hand committed to the brothers who are entrusted to him and whom he is asked to serve out of love.
This is how Jesus and the pastor that he chose looked into each other’s eyes; this is how they talked in a dialogue of a total life commitment. Over the years this dialogue grows, ages, matures, until it fully identifies with the destiny of his Lord: They will “lead you where you do not want to go” (v. 18), yes, “where you do not want to go,” as it happened to the Lord himself: “If you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done” (Lk 22:42).
“Follow me,” “Do you love me?” “Tend my sheep,” “Let yourself be led where I wish.” … Such is the axis of the dialogue between the pastor and Jesus, until the fullness of his existence, the time of the serene, steady, resignedly happy, and bright confession: “I am already being poured out like a libation, and the time of my departure is at hand” (2 Tm 4:6–7).
Is it like this, brother Juan Carlos, bishop and disciple of the Lord, we want to ask him. And surely, remembering the long and fruitful path traveled while following Jesus, he will look at us with that mischief that characterized him; and, with that great equanimity he possessed, he will answer us: So it is: “I know him in whom I have believed” (2 Tm 1:12).