Happy 1st Anniversary Pope Francis! ~ 12 months have past

We love you and are praying for you!

A year ago, on 13 March 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, became the 266th Pope of the Roman Catholic church, taking the his papacy name Francis after Francis Assisi. His first public gesture as Pope was not to bless the vast crowd in St. Peter's Square but to request the crowd's blessing, such great humility. Humility of course is a Christian virtue, but it is also something that St. Ignatius Loyola, the 16th-century founder of the Jesuits, specifically asked Jesuit priests and brothers to embrace. There are three kinds of humility, St. Ignatius said. The first is exemplified by the person who does nothing immoral. The second is the one who, when faced with honor or dishonor, is "indifferent." The third is the person who chooses the humbler path, to be more like Jesus. Pope Francis exemplifies this "Third Degree of Humility." In homilies, reflections and speeches, Francis most often does not tell his listeners what to think, he invites them to imagine and think for themselves. It is not the Pope's Jesus whom you are invited to meet, but your own.