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Requiem Mass for Pope Francis (died 21 April 2025) Quarr Abbey, 30 April 2025
On this day, rather than speaking about Pope Francis, I would like us to listen once more to his voice. The quotations I have chosen come from his four Encyclical Letters.
First from Lumen Fidei, his first Encyclical, written in 2013 and co-authored with Pope Benedict, about faith:
LF 7 The Successor of Peter, yesterday, today and tomorrow, is always called to strengthen his brothers and sisters in the priceless treasure of that faith which God has given as a light for humanity’s path.
In God’s gift of faith, […] we realize that a great love has been offered us, a good word has been spoken to us, and that when we welcome that word, Jesus Christ the Word made flesh, the Holy Spirit transforms us, lights up our way to the future and enables us joyfully to advance along that way on wings of hope.
Thank you, Pope Francis, for reminding us that faith gives us access to the great love which has been offered to us by God!
In 2015, Pope Francis wrote his major Encyclical Laudato si’on ecology and the care of our common home
LS 81. The biblical accounts of creation invite us to see each human being as a subject who can never be reduced to the status of an object.
82. Yet it would be mistaken to view other living beings as mere objects subjected to arbitrary human domination. When nature is viewed solely as a source of profit and gain, this has serious consequences for society. This vision of “might is right” has engendered immense inequality, injustice and acts of violence against the majority of humanity, since resources end up in the hands of the first comer or the most powerful: the winner takes all. Completely at odds with this model are the ideals of harmony, justice, fraternity and peace as proposed by Jesus.
83. The ultimate destiny of the universe is in the fullness of God, which has already been attained by the risen Christ, the measure of the maturity of all things. The ultimate purpose of other creatures is not to be found in us. Rather, all creatures are moving forward with us and through us towards a common point of arrival, which is God, in that transcendent fullness where the risen Christ embraces and illumines all things.
Thank you, Pope Francis, for pointing us in the direction of the Risen Christ!
In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, in 2020, Pope Francis wrote Fratelli Tutti, on fraternity and social friendship.
30. In today’s world, the sense of belonging to a single human family is fading, and the dream of working together for justice and peace seems an outdated utopia. What reigns instead is a cool, comfortable and globalized indifference, born of deep disillusionment concealed behind a deceptive illusion: thinking that we are all-powerful, while failing to realize that we are all in the same boat.
222.Yet even then, we can choose to cultivate kindness. Those who do so become stars shining in the midst of darkness.
224. Kindness frees us from the cruelty that at times infects human relationships, from the anxiety that prevents us from thinking of others, from the frantic flurry of activity that forgets that others also have a right to be happy. Often nowadays we find neither the time nor the energy to stop and be kind to others, to say “excuse me”, “pardon me”, “thank you”. Yet every now and then, miraculously, a kind person appears and is willing to set everything else aside in order to show interest, to give the gift of a smile, to speak a word of encouragement, to listen amid general indifference. If we make a daily effort to do exactly this, we can create a healthy social atmosphere in which misunderstandings can be overcome and conflict forestalled.
Thank you, Pope Francis, for inviting us to kindness in our daily lives.
Finally, in 2024, he gave us his beautiful meditation on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Dilexit nos:
28. It is only by starting from the heart that our communities will succeed in uniting and reconciling differing minds and wills, so that the Spirit can guide us in unity as brothers and sisters. Reconciliation and peace are also born of the heart. The heart of Christ is “ecstasy”, openness, gift and encounter. In that heart, we learn to relate to one another in wholesome and happy ways, and to build up in this world God’s kingdom of love and justice. Our hearts, united with the heart of Christ, are capable of working this social miracle.
31. In the end, that Sacred Heart is the unifying principle of all reality, since “Christ is the heart of the world, and the paschal mystery of his death and resurrection is the centre of history, which, because of him, is a history of salvation. In the presence of the heart of Christ, I once more ask the Lord to have mercy on this suffering world in which he chose to dwell as one of us. May he pour out the treasures of his light and love, so that our world, which presses forward despite wars, socio-economic disparities and uses of technology that threaten our humanity, may regain the most important and necessary thing of all: its heart.
Thank you, Pope Francis, for pressing us to regain our heart, in dialogue with the Heart of Jesus. We pray for you with great gratitude and great hope.