Pope Francis and the Lesson of the Humble Heart

One thing I deeply love about being Catholic is the sense of being part of a big family. Our family is now mourning the passing of Pope Francis, who most identified as being a pastor. We live in a world that deeply needs that all-embracing pastoral love. We have lost our leader, but it feels more like losing a holy, wise, caring grandparent.

The work of mourning is remembering. To re-member is to put ourselves back together after loss. What I choose to remember are the images of Pope Francis that I treasure: him wanting to pay his own bill leaving the hotel after being elected Pope; his first words to the faithful, “Pray for me;” him moving to Casa Santa Marta, the humble smaller guesthouse   residence rather than the extravagant papal apartments; him leaving his motorcade on a tarmac to kiss a child with cerebral palsy and then with that compassionate heart, seeing what others miss, acknowledging the parents who cared for this child day in and day out and who must have moved heaven and earth to get their son there. And I choose to remember his last generous act of love to come out on Easter Sunday to be with people as if to say, “I love you” one last time.

What I most hold dear about Pope Francis is his humility. Krista Tippett, the religious journalist, said, “Spiritual humility… is about approaching everything and everyone else with a readiness to see goodness and to be surprised. This is the humility of a child, which Jesus lauded... It has a lightness of step, not a heaviness of heart.” She, as well as other spiritual leaders have noted, humility is not to lower our opinion of ourselves, but to elevate our regard for others. Humility is not about me getting small but encouraging others to be big and creating a climate where that is more likely to happen. It is our spiritual work, to create an opening for others to be big, to transform the heaviness of the heart for mercy and understanding. 

As we mourn the passing of Pope Francis, we do so in the context of trust of the Advocate promised in Scripture. May the Holy Spirit send us another leader so humble and compassionate! May God send us another minister of mercy! May we remember the leader who never leaves us, Jesus Christ, so humble himself, to be born in a manger and die on a cross for us. How loved we have been by Pope Francis! How loved we are by our God!

Eternal rest grant to Francis, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.