This essay first appeared in our weekly Scripture reflection newsletter on May 17, 2025.
You won’t be surprised when I tell you that I’ve been thinking a lot about our new pope, Leo XIV. Most Catholics could say the same, with millions of us amazed by the activity of the Holy Spirit in inspiring the College of Cardinals to elect the first American pope, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, O.S.A.
There’s been a fair amount written about his past comments on LGBTQ issues, and you can check out this article by our executive director Michael O’Loughlin for more on that.
But for this meditation I would like to focus on the ways that God surprises us. For there were several other cardinals whose chances (if you could even use that word) to become the next pope seemed more likely—at least if you listened to the Italian press and other Vaticanologists. Cardinal Prevost’s candidacy, while strong, was usually relegated to one of the “compromise” candidates who would emerge only after many days of voting. But the Holy Spirit had other ideas: Cardinal Prevost was elected on the second day and the fourth ballot.
When Pope Leo XIV stepped out onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, in the blink of an eye the church changed.
When he stepped out onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica, in the blink of an eye the church changed. The first American pope. The first pope from the Augustinian order in many years. The first pope whose native language is English. And a pope who, at 69, is younger and healthier than the beloved Pope Francis, who had died just a few days before, at age 88. It all seemed so new.
In today’s second reading, the writer of the Book of Revelation has a vision of “a new heaven and a new earth.” He sees “a new Jerusalem.” The thrust of the passage is how God can “make all things new.”
Sometimes we doubt that. I remember before the conclave that elected Pope Francis in 2013, a great deal of people expressed despair. Nothing will change, some said, because most of the cardinal-electors were named by either Pope John Paul II or Pope Benedict XVI. This is not a knock against either of those two holy men. Rather, many thought that no matter what happened, not much would change.
Denying that God can surprise us is a form of despair. It says, “I know better than God. Nothing can change. There is no progress in the world. Or in the church.”
But God makes all things new: onto the balcony in 2013 stepped Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J., who not long afterwards pledged to make a “mess.” (His critics say he made too much of a mess; I think he shook things up just enough).
Denying that God can surprise us is a form of despair. It says, “I know better than God. Nothing can change. There is no progress in the world. Or in the church.”
The Risen Christ has to remind us not to despair. He has to remind us that God can make “all things new.” He understands that when the disciples are locked behind closed doors on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, he must break through their hopelessness to tell them—show them—that things have changed. Things are new. And he greets them not with condemnation of their despair, but with the first words that Pope Leo XIV used on the balcony of St. Peter’s: “Peace be with you.”
The Risen Christ has to remind us not to despair. He has to remind us that God can make “all things new.”
The newness that Jesus offers the disciples in today’s Gospel passage from John is the newness of his love. The disciples are to love one another not as they would love one another but in a new way: as Jesus has loved them. And in this newness, they are reborn as disciples.
As Pope Leo XIV begins his papacy, let us never doubt that God can always surprise us by making things new. And let us remember that the newness we are called to every day is the newness of Jesus’s love.
