Today marks the first anniversary of the election of Pope Francs to the See of Peter, an event that touched off an extraordinary year of grace for the Church.
The Vatican Information Service is characterizing this year as a “time of mercy”, exemplified by a pope whose devotion to the poor has warmed the hearts of the world. From his visit to the slums of Rio de Janiero last summer to washing the feet of prisoners at a local detention center on Holy Thursday, his compassion for others has reached near legendary proportions.
The humble pontiff also made headlines several times this year when he personally called a single mother to offer to baptize her child and sent money to an elderly woman who was mugged on her way to visit her sick husband in the hospital.
Women around the world have been encouraged by his commitment to continuing the work of his predecessors toward developing a deeper theology of women, challenging them to move beyond the idea that priestly ordination is the only way to achieve respect in the Church.
He also assuaged the hurt feelings of many people with same-sex tendencies by warning us all not to judge, but to love.
This down-to-earth compassion isn’t just skin deep – it’s something he lives every day. Forget the limousines and papal palaces. This pope prefers a simple dormitory room, brings his own lunch box to meetings and drives around town in a Ford Focus.
Francis has also had some difficult moments, however, such as when his manner of speaking tripped him up in interviews with the secular media that led to widespread misrepresentations of his position on social issues, statements that had to be clarified later.
But these stumbles only endeared him more to the people.
“The most important aspect of this first year is without doubt the great attention, the great attraction of the people – I say the people, meaning not only practicing Catholics, but everyone in this world – the great attention for this Pope, for his message,” said Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi.
“It is something that I think and hope is very deeply rooted in the heart of the people, who have felt touched by a word of love, attention, mercy, closeness, proximity, in which through the man, the Pope, the love of God arrives.”
Admittedly, the pope has introduced what the Vatican describes as a “slow but sure pace” to the office of the papacy.
The “priest of the world”, as his special secretary Msgr. Alfred Xuereb calls him, “has not wasted a minute! He works tirelessly and, when he feels the need to take a moment’s pause, he closes his eyes and does nothing: he simply sits and prays the Rosary.”
A gentle and yet highly intelligent man, he is also overseeing major reforms of the Roman Curia, including the centralization of Vatican finances.
Most important of all, he is overseeing what Fr. Lombardi calls a “journeying people.”
“The Church truly seems to be a journeying people. This is her most characteristic aspect: a sense of great dynamism. The Pope has given a great impulse and journeys with a Church that seeks God’s will, that seeks her mission in today’s world for the good of all, truly going out to the peripheries, to the ends of the world”, he continued, adding that there are “manifestations of attention, therefore, that come from places, from atypical organs of the press”, that “mean that his message reaches its target.”
Happy first anniversary, Pope Francis!
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