On the Feast of St Augustine, Pope Francis
travelled to the Rome church called after the saint who once prayed, “Lord,
give me chastity – but not yet.” His intention was to preside at the opening Mass
of the Augustinian’s General Chapter. He also touched at least one priest’s heart,
however, by his simple gesture of carrying his own mitre rather than having
someone else carry it for him. Neither did the Pope travel in one of the
luxurious papal limousines. Instead, he used the navy-blue Ford Focus which
has, within the space of a few weeks, become his hallmark mode of transport.
Heads of State (and even cardinals!!) might opt for the more spectacular and
vastly more expensive Mercedes, but the Holy Father deliberately selected one
of the least spectacular cars of the Vatican fleet – and moved at least one
person by his purposeful sign of his ‘option for the poor’.
But Pope Francis has touched many hearts, one at
a time, since his election. His former newspaper vendor and shoe repairer in
Buenos Aires will surely treasure their papal phone call for the rest of their
lives. No doubt their families, friends and customers (as well as the press)
will be told and re-told of how he rang them to cancel his newspapers and to
ask that the pair of shoes which he had left for mending be sent to the
Vatican! Similarly, the hotel desk clerk who received the payment for Cardinal
Bergoglio’s stay directly from the hands (and wallet) of Pope Francis will
cherish a unique moment which will stay with him for ever.
There have also been other occasions when the
Jesuit Pope has imitated St Ignatius of Loyola, who worked to win “one soul at
a time”. Likewise, he has followed the path of St Francis of Assisi, not only
in remembering the poor, but also in “speaking to a multitude with as much
attention as if he spoke to a single person, and to a single person with as
much care as if he spoke to a multitude.” Within the last few weeks, stories
have emerged to show a man of outstanding thoughtfulness, kindness and
sincerity.
At the beginning of July, thieves shot and killed
petrol pump attendant, 51 year-old Andrea Ferri during a robbery at a filling
station in the Italian coastal town of Pesaro. Andrea’s younger brother, Michele,
wrote to the Pope, telling him of his inability to forgive the killers. Imagine
the unexpected comfort and support that Francis gave to the family when he
phoned Andrea’s mother and brother, to pass on his condolences. "He told me he cried when he read the letter I wrote to him", Michele said afterwards.
The following month, Stefano Cabizza, a
19-year-old engineering student from Padova, attended the Pope’s Mass on the
Feast of the Assumption on 15 August, carrying a letter he had written to the
Holy Father. Handing it to a passing cardinal with the request that it would be
given to its intended recipient, Stefano expected nothing more. To his
amazement, three days later, Pope Francis rang Cabizza’s home, found him out,
phoned a second time and chatted to the student for a full eight minutes!
Those are two families which have been changed
for ever by a single unexpected phone call. Touchingly and unforgettably, there
was no formality about the greetings. "Ciao, Michele. It's Pope
Francis." The word ’ciao’ is so friendly and affectionate, the Italian
equivalent of ‘Hello’ – the greeting used by family members and friends.
Whilst still on the theme of informality, the
Pope recently posed with three young people who wanted a group photo with him
using a mobile phone, making himself the first-ever Bishop of Rome to make a
‘selfie’. Little imagination is needed to imagine the many hundreds of times
that photograph will be shared with others! Yet, at the same time, by his
simple and spontaneous gesture, he gave three young people a “Wow!” moment
which created an unforgettable moment of intimate personal involvement with the
Church.
An Argentinean woman recently wrote to the Pope
in despair after being raped by a policeman in Cordoba. The mother of six
children and foster mother of six others, three of whom “have disabilities”, Alejandra
Pereyra found her children repeatedly hassled after she tried to report an
incident of police harassment. In her letter to Pope Francis, Alejandra told
her story: “With all the pain I carry in my heart dear Holy Father, I ask you
for your help because after all the talk of rape, they finally did it. One
night in September 2008, around midnight, a police car turned up at our house
and a policeman who presented himself as Police Chief Sergio Braccamonte, got
out.” Mr. Braccamonte asked her to follow him to the police station but instead
drove her to an isolated place “where he pointed a service pistol at my head
and raped me.”
“When I heard the Pope's voice I felt like being
touched by God", Alejandra commented shortly afterwards. "He restored
faith and peace in me and gave me strength to carry on fighting." In that
one conversation, Pope Francis offered love, hope and healing, not only to one
suffering family, but also to the many thousands of rape victims across the
world, degraded and traumatised by the lust of others.
Yet he has not only reached out to the suffering.
Leandro Martins, a Brazilian cyclist on a 2,300 mile ride wrote to him: "I
know I am not an important person, a Head of State, an authority or even a
Catholic, but maybe I am also a sheep of God (or at least a neighbour of the
Pope) and that makes me feel that if I believe from the bottom of my heart that
it is possible, it really van happen. As everything I got in life, as this trip
that was a huge impossible dream, but now it is happening. So I thought: why
not try?" – and Francis met Leandro, chatted with him and signed the cyclist's Brazilian flag.
He wrote a thank you letter to Fr James Martin SJ
when the priest sent him Spanish translations of his books, autographed a
child’s plaster cast on her broken leg, gave a young man with Downs Syndrome a
ride on the swivel seat in the Popemobile... It really does not take much to
make a person feel special. The Pope has the gifts of intuition, compassion and
spontaneity. He does not consider himself too important to pick up the
telephone and chat to someone. This is what he meant by advising the bishops to
become ‘shepherds who smell like their sheep’. By means of such simple
gestures, he proclaims God’s Gospel of love from the rooftops, even to those
who had thought themselves deaf to such a message.
The
Pope who touches hearts one by one also wins hearts one by one.
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