In Case You Missed It: Pope Francis In His Own Words

The following words were taken directly from Pope Francis during his recent visit to the United States.[1] They are a compilation of quotes woven together to tell the story of the servant of the servants of God in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” They are words for you and me, for our country, and for the entire people of God whose hearts long to be filled with the joy of the gospel.

It is not my intention to offer a plan or to devise a strategy. I have not come to judge you or to lecture you. I have no wish to tell you what to do, because we all know what it is that the Lord asks of us. I have come to testify to the immensity of God’s love.

The Lord goes in search of us; to all of us he stretches out a helping hand. He comes to save us from the lie that says no one can change. He helps us to journey along the paths of life and fulfillment. We know in faith that Jesus seeks us out. He wants to heal our wounds, to soothe our feet which hurt from travelling alone, to wash each of us clean of the dust from our journey. He doesn’t ask us where we have been, he doesn’t question us what about we have done. Jesus comes to meet us, so that he can restore our dignity as children of God.

Jesus keeps knocking on our doors, the doors of our lives. He doesn’t do this by magic, with special effects, with flashing lights and fireworks. Jesus keeps knocking on our door in the faces of our brothers and sisters, in the faces of our neighbors, in the faces of those at our side. Jesus still walks our streets. He is part of our lives.

Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility. It is not about preaching complicated doctrines, but joyfully proclaiming Christ. A Christianity which “does” little in practice, while incessantly “explaining” its teachings, is dangerously unbalanced. We are promoters of the culture of encounter. We are living sacraments of the God’s embrace. We must constantly relate to others. We are witnesses of God.

Let us remember the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Mt 7:12). The brother or sister we wish to reach and redeem, with the power and the closeness of love, counts more than their positions, distant as they may be from what we hold as true and certain. Jesus’ Church is kept whole not by “consuming fire from heaven” (Lk 9:54), but by the secret warmth of the Spirit, who “heals what is wounded, bends what is rigid, straightens what is crooked”.

Let us treat others with the same passion and compassion with which we want to be treated. Let us seek for others the same possibilities which we seek for ourselves. Let us help others to grow, as we would like to be helped ourselves. In a word, if we want security, let us give security; if we want life, let us give life; if we want opportunities, let us provide opportunities. The yardstick we use for others will be the yardstick which time will use for us.

Jesus keeps telling his disciples to go, to go out. He urges us to go out and meet others where they really are, not where we think they should be. Go out, again and again, go out without fear, without hesitation. Go out and proclaim this joy which is for all the people. Go out to others and share the good news that God, our Father, walks at our side.

I have come so that we can pray together and offer our God everything that causes us pain, but also everything that gives us hope, so that we can receive from him the power of the resurrection. The fight against poverty and hunger must be fought constantly. For all our differences and disagreements, we can live in a world of peace. Our Father will not be outdone in generosity.

Love is shown by little things. Holiness is always tied to little gestures. These little gestures are those we learn at home, in the family. The family is a factory of hope, of life, of resurrection. Like the warm supper we look forward to at night, the early lunch awaiting someone who gets up early to go to work. Like a blessing before we go to bed, or a hug after we return from a hard day's work. Faith grows when it is lived and shaped by love. That is why our families, our homes, are true domestic churches. They are the right place for faith to become life, and life to become faith.

Jesus tells us not to hold back these little miracles.

So we might ask ourselves: How are we trying to live this way in our homes, in our societies? What kind of world do we want to leave to our children? Our common house can no longer tolerate sterile divisions. All that is good, all that is true, all that is beautiful brings us to God. Because God is good, God is beautiful, God is the truth. May our children find in us men and women capable of joining others in bringing to full flower all the good seeds which the Father has sown!

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[1] Quotes were taken from various addresses delivered by Pope Francis during his 2015 visit to the United States: Meeting with the US Bishops at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, D.C., Address to the Joint Session of Congress, Visit to the Homeless at the Charitable Center of St. Patrick Parish, Address to the General Assembly of the United Nations, Prayer at the Interreligious Meeting at Ground Zero Memorial, Mass at Madison Square Garden, Festival of Families, Address to Detainees at Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, and Mass to Conclude World Meeting of Families.