A Tribute to Pope Francis

                                                                  Sunday of Divine Mercy, Year C

                                       Sunday, April 27, 2025, 9:30am

                                       A Tribute to Pope Francis

 

Intro:

• Good morning!

      ◦ Great to be with you!

 

• As you all know, Pope Francis passed away this past Monday

            ‣ (All us priests look forward to catching our breath on Easter Monday… and then the Pope passed away)

• It’s fitting that Pope Francis passed away right before Divine Mercy Sunday

      ◦ I think the strongest theme throughout his papacy—and his episcopacy—was mercy

                  • His episcopal motto was: miserando atque eligendo, “having mercy, he called him”

                  • He called mercy “Jesus’ most important message” (The Name of God is Mercy, 5)

            ‣ Every 25 years, the Church has a Jubilee Year (right now, we are in the middle of the Jubliee of Hope)

                  • But sometimes, the Holy Father thinks there is a theme that is so important, that it can’t wait until the next quarter of a century

                        ◦ So, back in 2016, we had an Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy

                              ‣ The Holy Father just couldn’t wait to ask the faithful to encounter the Lord’s mercy

 

• I was in Rome when Pope Francis became Pope

            ‣ I was actually in the square

                  • (That story???)

            ‣ For the first few years, I actually read everything he said (eventually, I couldn’t keep up anymore)

            ‣ I met Pope Francis a couple of times

            ‣ And I was ordained a priest during the Extraordinary Jubliee of Mercy

      ◦ So, today I would like to tell you about Pope Francis—do a “tribute” to him—and in doing so, we will work our way to the theme of Mercy:

 

 

Body:

1. Pope Francis:

• Again, I read everything he said, for two and a half years

      ◦ Literally thousands of pages

            ‣ Printed it all out, killed lots of trees

            ‣ …and then the Pope came out with his encyclical on the environment, so I had to stop printing them all out

      ◦ I know his thought very well

            ‣ …and I also know that he drove a lot of people nuts… especially Americans!

• So, let me try to explain Pope Francis to you, and maybe it will help us to understand what he was up to for the last dozen years:

 

• First and foremost, Pope Francis was not American

      ◦ America is a powerhouse in the economy

            ‣ But money is the currency of the world, not the currency of God

      ◦ America only has about 4-4.5% of the world’s souls

            ‣ (And most of those souls are not even Catholic)

      ◦ So, we alway have to be very careful not to twist the Holy Father and his thoughts into an American way of thinking, and place American labels on him

• So, first and foremost, Pope Francis is not an American, and therefore he doesn’t think like an American

 

• **Secondly, Pope Francis is a Jesuit… and therefore he doesn’t think like anyone!

      ◦ When I was in seminary here at Sacred Heart, I had a Jesuit for a couple of classes

            ‣ The first week of the first class, he just asked questions all day:

                  • “What about this, what about that?”

            ‣ The next week, he would ask questions all day

            ‣ A couple months into the class, someone raised his hand and asked: “Father, you keep throwing all these questions at us, are we ever going to get to the answer?”

                  • “Yes, of course we will!”

            ‣ Next two months, nothing but questions

                  • Asked again: “Are we going to get to any answers.”

                        ◦ “Yes, last class.”

            ‣ Show up for the last week of class, question, question, question!

                  • At the very end of class, Father said: “And the answer is Jesus Christ on the Cross!”

            ‣ We all said, “That’s it?!!! 16 weeks of questions, and then we spend at most 5 minutes on an answer?!”

      ◦ So, I told that story to a group of priests, and one said: “That’s a Jesuit for you. He’s more interested in the question than he is in the answer.”

            ‣ ***Honestly, that is Pope Francis, a Jesuit

                  • He is more interested in the question than he is in the answer

 

2. Culture of Encounter:

• And there was a point to this

      ◦ Pope Francis was trying to get us to encounter

      ◦ He was trying to create a “Culture of Encounter”

 

• I’ll explain this in Fulton Sheen terms:

      ◦ Archbishop Fulton Sheen would talk about outer truths and inner truths

            ‣ An outer truth, is something outside yourself, something you set out to master

                  • 2+2=4

                        ◦ I can get that

                        ◦ I can “master” that

                  • You can count up the pews in this church

                        ◦ You can master that, but it’s probably not going to change your life

            ‣ **An inner truth, on the other hand, is that which comes inside, and masters you

                  • That should be God… but we have to encounter Him

 

      ◦ Often, when we get the answer, when we figure something out, when we “master” something, we go: “Okay! Got it!” And we move on

            ‣ But questions are funny things

                  • You have to wrestle with them

                  • They kind of force you into an encounter

 

      ◦ Pope Benedict wrote how in our technological world, we are so used to mastering everything, that we just cannot stand being mastered any more

            ‣ Back in the day, people had to be more humble

                  • A couple hundred years ago:

                        ◦ You wouldn’t know if a hurricane was coming

                        ◦ Even if you did know, you wouldn’t be able to escape it

                        ◦ And there wasn’t much you could do to defend yourself from hurricanes (you lost your house and all your possessions)

                              ‣ That hurricane had it’s way with you, “mastered” you!

                  • Today, to a large extent—not completely, but to a large extent—we have mastered even hurricanes

                              ‣ (We know when they’re coming, we can run from them, and we can build buildings that can withstand them)

            ‣ We are so used to mastering everything, and then we encounter God—Who cannot be mastered… He is the Master—that we don’t even know how to encounter Him any more

      ◦ Pope Benedict saw all this as detrimental to the faith, our ability to have faith, our ability to know the loving God

      ◦ Pope Francis saw this too

            ‣ And that’s why he wasn’t afraid of a little confusion

            ‣ He wasn’t afraid to throw out a question, to get people wrestling, get people encountering

 

• Pope Francis was trying to encourage a “Culture of Encounter”

            ‣ ***A culture of encountering real things: Mainly God, and each other

      ◦ Pope Francis became Pope on Wednesday, March 13, 2013

      ◦ On Thursday, March 14, we had our weekly formation meeting at the seminary

            ‣ The priest who ran that meeting has since gone home to God

                  • He was old, in poor health, and he may have been wider than he was tall

            ‣ And he told us all how he had sat in his room and watched it all on TV

                  • He told us that he could see it better, but we had a more real experience

                        ◦ We were there in person

 

• Pope Francis, many times, critiqued how we are always on our phones

            ‣ He’d talk about how sad it was to see a family at a restaurant, but they’re not really together, each one is on his or her phone

                  • That destroys a culture of encounter

 

      ◦ He critiqued how crazy people were about their pets

            ‣ He named himself after St. Francis of Assisi

                  • The Franciscans are known for their love of animals

                  • Pope Francis loved animals too, but he pushed back many times on how people treat their animals like human beings

            ‣ One time, as the Holy Father was greeting people, a woman asked: “Will you bless my baby?!”

                  • Pope Francis lit up: “Oh yes, of course!”

            ‣ She grabbed the “baby,” turned back around, and it was a little dog!

                  • Pope Francis chewed her out: ‘That’s not a baby, that’s dog! There’s starving kids all over the world, and you’re treating that dog like a baby. There’s naked children all over India, and that dog is wearing clothes!’

            ‣ **It’s a grave poverty how our culture is moving away from having children, and replacing them with pets

                  • You can “master” a dog

                        ◦ You can’t “master” another human being

                        ◦ You have to encounter him

 

      ◦ Pope Francis was very critical of this gender ideology stuff going around:

            ‣ For a number of reasons

                  • One, because it starts getting away from nature, and denying reality

                  • And, once our reality has been denied, we start loosing the culture of encounter (once there is no reality, there is nothing to encounter)

            ‣ Last year, on March 1, Pope Francis said:

                  • “I would like to highlight something: it is very important for there to be this encounter, this encounter between men and women, because today the worst danger is gender ideology, which cancels out differences. I asked for studies to be made on this ugly ideology of our time, which erases differences and makes everything the same; to erase difference is to erase humanity. Man and woman, on the other hand, stand in fruitful ‘tension.’”

            ‣ So, Pope Francis pushed back on all this gender ideology stuff, but from the angle of encounter

                  • Men and women are different

                        ◦ Those differences are good, and lead to a “fruitful tension”

                        ◦ When men start fleeing their masculinity, and women start fleeing their femininity, it’s going to “erase humanity”

                              ‣ The self will be destroyed, and there will be nothing left to encounter

 

3. Encountering God / Mercy:

• So Pope Francis was all about encountering, that “Culture of Encounter”

      ◦ Encountering real things

            ‣ Each other

            ‣ And particularly encountering God, and most especially, encountering God in His mercy

      ◦ Again, his episcopal motto was: miserando atque eligendo, “having mercy, he called him”

      ◦ During the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, Pope Francis came out with a book: The Name of God is Mercy

            ‣ And I really like the title

                  • It’s not just that God is merciful

                  • God is Mercy

                        ◦ Mercy is God’s identity

                        ◦ When you encounter His Mercy, you encounter God

                        ◦ And when you encounter God, you encounter His Mercy

 

• Pope Francis says: “The message of Jesus is mercy. For me … it is the Lord’s strongest message” (ix).

            ‣ Which only makes sense

                  • Jesus didn’t come to condemn us

                              ‣ We were already condemned

                        ◦ If Jesus wanted to condemn us, He just wouldn’t have come at all

                  • The whole reason Jesus came was to save us… to save us from our sins

                        ◦ Jesus came out of mercy and for mercy

 

      ◦ One of Pope Francis’ most common lines—which I find very helpful myself—is: “The Lord never tires of forgiving: never! It is we who tire of asking him for forgiveness” (xi).

            ‣ That bears repeating! “The Lord never tires of forgiving: never! It is we who tire of asking him for forgiveness.”

                  • Most of us bring the same sins to confession month after month after month!

                        ◦ Don’t stop!

                        ◦ Don’t give up

                        ◦ The Lord never tires of forgiving!

 

      ◦ Another great line: “God forgives not with a decree but with a caress” (xii).

                  • God’s a hugger!

            ‣ My Grandpa Tomaszycki was a good hugger

                        ◦ He just gave the best hugs!

                  • What do you think God’s hugs are like? …

                        ◦ When we come to Confession, God forgives us with a hug

 

      ◦ Pope Francis gives a definition of mercy—which I find surprising, even a little bit strange:

            ‣ Mercy means: “opening one’s heart to wretchedness” (8)

                  • We don’t deny our sins

                  • God doesn’t deny our sins

                        ◦ But He opens His heart, and we can hand over our wretchedness, and He takes us in and heals us

 

      ◦ Pope Francis was asked why humanity is in such need of mercy, and he answered:

            ‣ “Because humanity is wounded, deeply wounded. Either it does not know how to cure its wounds or it believes that it’s not possible to cure them” (15).

                  • I think we all fall into these doubts: ‘Will I ever really be healed? I mean really?’

            ‣ Martin Luther actually thought that humanity was irredeemably broken

                  • He said that mankind was like a pile of dung

                  • Jesus sprinkles grace—like snow—on top of you, and He accepts you into heaven, kind of begrudgingly, like snow covered dung

            ‣ As Catholics, this is not what we believe

                  • We believe in Redemption

                        ◦ We believe that Jesus is not only our Savior, but also our Redeemer

                              ‣ And He redeems us through mercy

            ‣ **Have you ever noticed, that throughout the Gospels, no one ever stays dead in the presence of Jesus?

                  • Every time a dead person is presented to Jesus, life enters into him …

      ◦ Our sins, our wretchedness, they kill us, they bring death

                  • That’s what sins does!

                  • (Don’t ever belittle the seriousness of sin!)

      ◦ That’s why we need to go to Confession, and go to Confession often

            ‣ That’s where we encounter God’s mercy

                  • He brings us back to life, with a big hug!

 

 

Conclusion:

• Okay, that’s enough

      ◦ I’d like us to walk away with three things:

            ‣ 1. Culture of Encounter

                  • Keep working on the culture of encounter

                        ◦ Put down the phones

                              ‣ Encounter your loved ones

                              ‣ Encountner the people right in front of you

                        ◦ And we need some silence in our lives so that we can hear and encounter God

            ‣ 2. Encounter God’s Mercy

                        ◦ If we’re not encountering God’s mercy, I don’t know if we are really encountering God

                  • Make an examination of conscience every night, and ask for God’s forgiveness

                  • And come to Confession at least once a month

                        ◦ Get that big “hug” from God!

            ‣ 3. Pray for the repose of the soul of Pope Francis

                  • We are being asked particularly to pray the Rosary for him

                  • And pray for the next Pope, whomever that may be

 

 

“God Love You!”