30 January 2015

Faith And Hope In The Face Of Rejection

Some people believe they can overcome anything with their faith.  Perhaps that's true; I have no doubt that belief in God (or whatever they choose to call Him/Her/It) or simply supernatural forces helps them to deal with difficult situations and painful emotions.

Diego Neria Lejarraga is such a person.  "I never lost faith, ever," he said.  "But the other thing is the rejection."

A few days ago, he had a private audience with Pope Francis I.  This meeting was a first for any Pontiff because Diego was born a girl in Spain, where he is a civil servant. 

What makes this all the more interesting is that Lejarraga is not an activist and, he didn't go into his meeting with any notion that he would change the church.  But, he said, he was impressed with how Francis "loves the whole world" and does not have "any discrimination against anyone."  But, Lejarraga added, he was "speaking about him, and not the institution".

Still, he holds out hope that "if this Pope has a long life...I think things will change".

Perhaps some day I will have that kind of faith.

2 comments:

Coline said...

The pope was seeing a guy...

Justine Valinotti said...

Coline--You got that right!