The Pope of Mercy, Joy and the Church in Exit
With a heart full of gratitude and hope, the Church looks at Pope Francis’ legacy today, which the Lord has now called his presence. His life was of great consistency between the Gospel, the gestures he had, and the words he gave. Leave us a deep spiritual heritage marked by three pillars: mercy, the joy of the gospel, and the church on the way out.
The face of mercy
From the early gestures of his pontificate, Francis was a close pastor, sensitive to human weaknesses. His first homily as a Pope, still in the Sistine Chapel, already pointed out this path: «Let us never get tired of asking forgiveness. God never gets tired of forgiving, we are the ones who get tired of asking for His mercy ».
With the Jubilee of Mercy in 2016, Francis called the whole church to rediscover this center of the Gospel. Mercy, for him, was not a theological accessory, but the «Charter of God’s Identity». As wrote in the package leaflet misericordiae voltus: «Mercy is the master beam that sustains the life of the Church». And added, with pastoral vigor: « Wherever there are Christians, anyone should find an oasis of mercy ».
A church on the way out
Pope Francis invited us incessantly to leave ourselves, our amenities and closed structures. The famous expression ‘church on exit’ is not a simple slogan Pastoral, but a call to missionary fidelity.
In his first apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, he left an incisive appeal, which would be one of the pillars of his pontificate: « I prefer a rugged church, wounded and muddy to have gone out of the roads, to a nursed church for the closure and convenience of clinging to their own security guards. ».
Francis made the center out of the periphery, reminding us that it is there that Christ dwells, among the discarded, the poor, the migrants, the prisoners. What’s more, it made listening an evangelizing method. Not only ‘leave’, but also ‘welcome’.
This dynamism of missionary conversion also presupposes a personal effort of overcoming and surrender. As St. Josemaria Escrivá, founder of Opus Dei teaches, holiness does not settle in excuses, but grows in the fight against selfishness and passivity. Thus each Christian is called to become truly protagonist of the mission of the Church. This also called Pope Francis, all the Christians of our time.
The joy of the Gospel
Joy – not as superficial euphoria, but as the result of the encounter with Jesus – was a constant mark of his pontificate. Your first apostolic exhortation begins with the words: «The joy of the Gospel fills the heart and the whole life of those who meet Jesus».
Francis believed, and made us believe that a sad Christianity contradicts the essence of the gospel. As it said: «Let us not let us steal the evangelizing joy! And he recalled that holiness is lived in daily life with lightness and smile: «A sad saint is a sad saint».
Pope Francis leaves not only administrative reforms or teaching documents. Leave us an evangelical style of being a church. A church with the eyes of Christ, capable of moving in the face of suffering, bold in the mission and rooted in the joy of the risen.
Opus Dei Regional Vicar
