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!”
