Change of Heart?

My thoughts this week have been dominated by two powerful media events. The first event is the death of a justice of the US Supreme Court and the raging divisions the death highlighted. The second is the progress of the pope through Mexico and his calls for unity, mercy, justice, dialog, conversion, and understanding.

Scarcely had the last breath escaped the lungs of Antonin Scalia, and the battle lines were drawn tightly around dogmatic and ideological lines. In a moment of supreme irony, upon the death of one of the greatest defenders of the framers of the Constitution, the hue and cry was for the President to ignore the document and waive his constitutional duty for over eleven months. The airwaves were filled with apodictic language on both sides. “Must not! Can’t! Shouldn’t! Don’t! Shan’t!” or “Must! Can! Should! Do! Shall!”

Yesterday, Pope Francis stood at the border between the USA and Mexico. He used the day’s reading from the book of Jonah to ask world leaders to remember that what is needed in the world today is a change of heart. He echoed Jonah’s message to Nineveh at a border that symbolizes fear and negativity, isolation and rejection.

“Go and tell them that injustice has infected their way of seeing the world. Go and help them to understand that by the way they treat each other, ordering and organizing themselves, they are only creating death and destruction, suffering and oppression. Let us together ask our God for the gift of conversion, the gift of tears, let us ask him to give us open hearts like the Ninevites, open to his call heard in the suffering faces of countless men and women. No more death! No more exploitation!”

Lent is a season for a change of heart—for everyone. Bishop Daniel Flores who is traveling with the Holy Father in Mexico told CNN that the central themes of the Pope’s sermon and his papacy are the same—a call to conversion. “No one is exempt from this; it is addressed to everyone: government leaders, politicians, bishops, clergy, young people, families, prisoners, business leaders.”

Twelve hundred miles to the north inside the Washington beltway, conversion was the farthest from folks’ minds. Heels were being dug in. Dialogue was absent, and again the needs of real people were being ignored.

Maybe we need a new Jonah to walk through the halls of government and to traverse the country calling for a change of heart. Jonah was certain that the call for justice and reform would go unheeded and that God would destroy the city.

Maybe there is still hope that the bad will that surrounds the death of Justice Scalia will dissipate. Maybe Pope Francis’s call will be heard and the dignity of every human person will be considered on both the right and the left of the political spectrum.

There is just one virtue that is essential for a change of heart—the virtue of humility. Arrogance is the sworn enemy of conversion. Maybe we all need to pray the words of the Responsorial Psalm heard at the last Mass Pope Francis celebrated in Mexico:

A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.
For you are not pleased with sacrifices;
should I offer a burnt offering, you would not accept it.
My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;
a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.
Psalm 51:18-19

Such an attitude can convert “can’t” and “won’t” to “can” and “will.” ¡Si, se puede! Yes, it can!