Spiritual Reflections on the Papal Interview
James Martin, SJ
WE WERE DELIGHTED at America to publish the English-language translation of this moving interview with Pope Francis. Most readers of this book are aware of the astonishing worldwide response to the pope’s words. Within minutes of the interview’s release, every form of media leapt upon his comments as one of the biggest religion stories of the year. Much of the media’s attention was focused on the pope’s commentary on a variety of hot-button topics, such as reform of the church, homosexuality, contraception, and abortion. This is not surprising: it was seen as more newsworthy.
Somewhat overlooked were the profound spiritual insights hidden within the long interview, which the editors at America treasured as we slowly read over the transcript in the weeks preceding its publication. In fact, our review process was somewhere between editing and spiritual reading. One editor said that it was the first time she found herself in tears over a galley.
A Big Heart Open to God is primarily a spiritual testimony and, as such, represents an invitation to prayer. So let me offer a few spiritual reflections on selected quotes and suggest some reflection questions for your own personal prayer.
“I AM A SINNER WHOM THE LORD HAS LOOKED UPON.”
Many commentators focused on what was seen as a remarkable admission for a pope. At the beginning of the conversation, Father Spadaro, who conducted the interview on behalf of several Jesuit journals, asks, “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?” The pope pauses for a moment and then answers, “I am a sinner.” He continues: “This is the most accurate definition. It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre. I am a sinner.” That quote was the focus of many stories written after the interview’s publication.
To me, however, it was not surprising that the pope spoke of himself in that way. Truly holy men and women fully understand their limitations and their sinfulness—in a word, their humanity. So do popes. Pope John Paul I, who served as pope for only one month in 1978, once said, “I am only a poor man, accustomed to small things and silence.” Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict spoke in a similar vein during their pontificates. Like all men and women close to God, in his bones Jorge Mario Bergoglio, SJ, knows that he is a sinner: imperfect, flawed, and struggling.
But there was more to the interview than an admission of sinfulness, for Francis elaborates by saying, “I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.” For anyone familiar with Ignatian spirituality—the spirituality based on the life and writings of St. Ignatius Loyola, the sixteenth-century founder of the Jesuit order—those words were instantly recognizable. The more popular formulation of that idea is that a person is a “loved sinner.”
In Ignatian spirituality, this phrase finds its origins in the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius Loyola’s classic manual for prayer. At the beginning of the Exercises a person is asked to meditate on the blessings he or she has received from God. For most people, looking back on the graces that God has given them evokes tremendous gratitude.
In time, however, another movement becomes evident. Gradually, you become aware of your sinfulness. This does not mean that you see yourself as worthless or shameful. Rather, in light of all the blessings God has poured out, you become conscious of the reality of the human condition: we are all flawed, limited, imperfect people. As one spiritual director told me, “In the bright sunshine of God’s love, you begin to see your shadow.” Typically, you experience a sudden awareness that, in the face of your sinfulness, God still loves you. So you are a “loved sinner” or, as the pope says, “a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.” It is a highly important concept in the spiritual life.
Too often we focus only on one aspect of this reality. Either we see ourselves simply as sinners, unredeemed and unloved. Or we view ourselves simply as loved by God and in no need of looking at our sins. True Christian spirituality keeps these two realities present to one another. We are loved sinners.
For Reflection
1. Where has God blessed you?
2. What would you say is your core sin?
3. Can you see yourself as a “loved sinner”?
“DISCERNMENT TAKES TIME.”
When asked what element of Ignatian spirituality most enables him to live out his ministry as pope, Francis had a one-word answer: discernment. As with a few concepts in Ignatian spirituality, the English word used masks a deeper reality.
In common parlance, a “discerning” person often is one who makes wise decisions or has good taste. In Catholic spiritual circles it means much more. In the Ignatian tradition, “discernment” is a way of prayerfully making decisions based on practices from the Spiritual Exercises. In fact, a great deal of St. Ignatius’s great work is focused on making holy, healthy, and life-giving decisions. The original title of his text was Spiritual Exercises to Overcome Oneself, and to Order One’s Life, Without Reaching a Decision Through Some Disordered Affection. In other words, these are exercises designed to help us make good and free decisions.
In the Exercises, Ignatius offers several techniques for doing so—though this is not the place for a long description of his type of discernment. But at the heart of Ignatian discernment is something simple: a belief not only that God wants us to make good decisions, but also that God will help us do so. Moreover, by paying attention to the various “movements” in our hearts we can come to understand God’s desires for us. In the most basic application, when we are aligned with God’s desires for us, we will feel a sense of rightness, what Ignatius calls “consolation.” Over time, then, we can learn to ponder our choices, weigh these feelings, and search out God’s desires.
But as Francis says, “Discernment takes time.” At one point in the interview, the pope says bluntly, “I am always wary of the first decision, that is, the first thing that comes to my mind if I have to make a decision. This is usually the wrong thing. I have to wait and assess, looking deep into myself, taking the necessary time.” Often there is no need to rush. Rather than trying to figure things out, it may be more helpful to ask God to reveal things to us.
Part of making good decisions is knowing yourself and guarding against unhealthy patterns of deciding—like rash, selfish, or angry decisions. The goal is freedom—the freedom to be open to God’s voice.
For Reflection
1. What is the best decision you ever made?
2. Did you, or do you, feel a sense of “rightness” about that decision?
3. Can you see God as guiding you in that discernment process?
“MY AUTHORITARIAN AND QUICK MANNER OF MAKING DECISIONS LED ME TO HAVE SERIOUS PROBLEMS AND TO BE ACCUSED OF BEING ULTRACONSERVATIVE.”
This quote hardly seems like the most spiritual of reflections. It sounds more like a sentence from a business management textbook! Yet the pope’s frank admission marks a spiritual moment in the interview, because it is an honest assessment of himself. It is an indication of humility.
Pope Francis is speaking of his time as a Jesuit regional superior (or “provincial”) in Argentina in the 1970s, a tremendously difficult time for him, for the Argentinean people, and for Argentinean Jesuits. The pope is remarkably frank about what he sees as the failings of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, SJ, during that controversy-filled period.
In the interview he “accuses himself,” as Jesuits sometimes say, of making rash and hasty decisions. Later, he returns to that theme, saying bluntly that he has realized that in his life the first decision he makes “is usually the wrong thing.” Without delving into the choices that the pope made during his time as a Jesuit provincial (at the extremely young age of thirty-six, which he calls “crazy”), what strikes me most about this self-examination is its refreshing and almost embarrassing candor.
The former Jesuit provincial does not use the circumlocution “mistakes were made.” Nor does he remark in an offhand way, “Things could have been done better.” Instead, the pope offers a blunt assessment of himself as a Jesuit superior and an imperfect human being who “created problems.” Part of the Jesuit spiritual tradition—indeed, the Christian spiritual tradition—is an “examination of conscience,” or more generally an examination of one’s moral activity. Here you can see the leader of the Catholic Church doing just that, in the most open manner imaginable—in a worldwide interview. Here is true humility.
Humility is the gateway to holiness. Without it, we place ourselves, rather than God, at the center of our lives. Without it, we rely on only ourselves without grasping our fundamental dependence on God. Without it, we are tempted to think of ourselves as perfect, and so we resist any opportunity for growth.
Where would Pope Francis be if he had resisted the invitation for self-examination? If he had resisted the call to humility? His blunt assessment of himself is an invitation for all of us humbly to examine our decisions and our actions.
For Reflection
1. How have you learned from your mistakes?
2. Can you ask God in prayer for greater self-knowledge?
3. In what areas of your life have you grown?
“WE SHOULD NOT EVEN THINK, THEREFORE, THAT ‘THINKING WITH THE CHURCH’ MEANS ONLY THINKING WITH THE HIERARCHY OF THE CHURCH.”
Here is something new, as far as I know. While the phrase “thinking with the church” may be unfamiliar to some readers, it is well known by Jesuits and Catholic scholars. In the Spiritual Exercises, St. Ignatius lays out his famous “Rules for Thinking [or Feeling] with the Church,” an invitation for a person to incorporate himself or herself deeply into the life of the church and align himself or herself in the most profound way with the church’s teaching. It is a long list of suggestions, which mainly concern praising the church and supporting it. Perhaps the most famous dictum is that even if a person sees something as white, he or she should “believe it to be black” if the church determines it. That last phrase is often used as a warning—or a threat—against those who are seen as “not in line” with one or another church pronouncement. It is also used as an argument for blind obedience.
Pope Francis, as a former Jesuit novice director and provincial, knows the Spiritual Exercises exceedingly well. In the interview, the pope gives the expression “thinking with the church” a new interpretation. The church, says the pope, is the “totality of God’s people,” pastors and people together, not just the hierarchy. So thinking with the church, as he says, is not simply thinking with the hierarchy. In this we hear echoes of the Second Vatican Council’s emphasis on the church not as a top-down organization, but something broader; in a beautiful phrase, the church is the “People of God.”
Francis’s understanding of “thinking with the church” is a more capacious definition than I have heard, certainly from a pope—and I am speaking not simply of recent popes, but popes since the time of St. Ignatius in the sixteenth century. Perhaps only Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a Jesuit who understands the Spiritual Exercises and who occupies the papacy, could say this, and even reinterpret Ignatius in the process.
For Catholics and Christians, this theological insight opens a variety of questions.
For Reflection
1. How do you see the Holy Spirit alive in the church today?
2. What does “thinking with the church” mean for you?
3. Are there times when you need to listen more carefully to what the church says?
“I SEE THE CHURCH AS A FIELD HOSPITAL AFTER BATTLE.”
There are many images of the church. The church is the Body of Christ, as St. Paul said, the visible body of Christ on earth. It is the People of God, as the Second Vatican Council wrote, all of us—clergy and laity, saints and sinners, past and present—gathered together. It is our Holy Mother, an ancient image of a warm and maternal presence.
But until the pope used it, I had never heard the image of the church as a “field hospital.” In Pope Francis’s imagination, the church is akin to a hospital caring for the wounded or the very sick in the midst of a war. The image came in response to a question about the various issues the church should most focus on. Pope Francis responded that rather than focusing on smaller matters, the church must turn its attention to larger ones. And so he says, “It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds.” In other words, first things first.
The metaphor is a beautiful one and moves us beyond simply thinking about what the hot-button issues of the day are. When I read those words, I thought of a hospital set in a field of battle, covered only by a tarpaulin or cloth held up by steel posts and open to the air. Inside were the people who most needed help. But also, in my imagination, I saw people coming in and going out freely. The church was open to all, and focused on helping those most in need. The church was providing what Pope John XXIII once called the “medicine of mercy.”
Notice too that the church here is not a “warrior,” though it is sometimes necessary to fight (and to suffer) for our beliefs. No, here the church is the group that cares for people wounded in the battles and struggles that come into the world. What is needed most today, said the pope, is a church that can “heal wounds” and “warm the hearts of the people.”
For Reflection
1. How does Christ “heal wounds”?
2. How can you warm hearts?
3. What else does the image of the church as a field hospital say to you?
“IT IS NECESSARY TO ACCOMPANY THEM WITH MERCY.”
During an in-flight press conference after World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro in 2013, Pope Francis made headlines when he uttered the words, “Who am I to judge?” when asked a question about gay priests in the church.
At the time, several commentators opined that the pope’s words were not only uninteresting (since the pope did not change any church teaching on homosexuality); they were also limited, applying only, they said, to gay priests. But in our interview, Francis speaks at some length about gay persons in general, and even notes that his comments during the in-flight press conference referred to gay persons, not simply gay priests: “During the return flight from Rio de Janeiro I said that if a homosexual person is of goodwill and is in search of God, I am no one to judge.”
The new interview continues Francis’s pastoral stance toward gays and lesbians. “We must always consider the person,” he said. “Here we enter into the mystery of the human being. In life, God accompanies persons, and we must accompany them, starting from their situation. It is necessary to accompany them with mercy.” While none of this changes church teaching, the pope’s words have changed the way the church speaks to and about gay persons. And that is new.
But there is more to this comment than simply a commentary on gay and lesbian persons. It is much deeper than that. Pope Francis leads with mercy. Mercy has been a hallmark of his papacy from its earliest days. The interview in America reveals a gentle pastor who looks upon people as individuals, not as categories.
The pope also challenges us to reach out with mercy, as Jesus did, to those who are seen as on the margins. Remember that for Jesus there is no “other,” no one to be shunned or excluded. When confronted with a Roman centurion, a woman suspected of adultery, or a person seen to be a notorious sinner, Jesus is merciful.
He is especially merciful to those who are sick or poor. Indeed, the English translation of what happens inside Jesus when he sees the poor or sick or hungry is this: “His heart went out to them.” The original Greek word used in the Gospels is much stronger: splagchnizomai. That long word means, literally, that Jesus’s bowels were moved with emotion. This was the seat of the emotions for Greek-speaking people in the time of the Gospels. In other words, Jesus felt compassion, or mercy, in his guts.
This is the emotion that we are called to feel for one another: compassion, pity, mercy.
For Reflection
1. Are there people that you consider to be “other”?
2. Can you hear Jesus saying “Blessed are the merciful” to you?
3. Who in your life can you “accompany with mercy”?
“GOD IS FOUND IN THE GENTLE BREEZE PERCEIVED BY ELIJAH.”
This is one of my favorite quotes in the entire interview. When asked a question about encountering God, Pope Francis refers to a passage from the Old Testament in which the prophet Elijah is listening for God’s voice:
Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:11–13)
Elijah recognizes God not in great, dramatic events such as a tornado or an earthquake or a fire, but in what some translators call a “still, small voice” or “a gentle breeze.”
This is not to say that God is not active in dramatic events in our lives—a wedding, a birth, a death—or in the Bible—a pillar of fire, a burning bush, a storm stilled. God is active everywhere. But it is human nature to concentrate so much on looking for God in the big things that we often do not look for God in the small. We all want the overwhelming epiphany, the unmistakably dramatic moment, when we can say, “Aha! Now that is really God!”
The pope reminds us that the smaller things in life—a smile on a baby’s face, the sight of the sunlight on the pavement, and yes, a gentle breeze—are all ways in which we can experience God.
This is most often the way that we experience God—in what might be called our “ordinary time.” To help us recognize these moments, we need to cultivate a sense of awareness, so that our eyes are open. We also need trust, so that with open eyes we might believe that this is indeed, as Elijah perceived, God’s voice.
For Reflection
1. What “gentle breezes” help you see God?
2. How can your ordinary time be extraordinary?
3. How can you notice God more in your day-to-day life?
“IN THIS QUEST TO SEEK AND FIND GOD IN ALL THINGS THERE IS STILL AN AREA OF UNCERTAINTY.”
Over the past decades Christianity has been seen as a religion of certainty. And the true Christian is indeed certain of many things: God became human, Christ is risen, the Holy Spirit is with us. All of those things are at the heart of the Christian faith.
There is always the danger, however, that the Christian faith can tempt us into thinking that we know all there is to know about religion, spirituality, and God. But as much as we can know about God—through experience, through church tradition, through the Scriptures, and most of all through Jesus Christ—God remains essentially unknowable. If you can define it and categorize it, then what you have defined and categorized is not God. Most thoughtful believers would assent to this, but the temptation to complete certainty is always there, because most of us are uncomfortable with uncertainty.
Moreover, we may be tempted to believe that God can only work in certain ways, through certain people and at certain times. But the idea that God might be at work in other religions (one of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council) and in people who do not seem particularly religious (one of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth) is essential, if we are to maintain a stance of humility before the Lord.
“If one has the answers to all the questions,” says the pope, “that is the proof that God is not with him.” Can we “live the question,” as one of my spiritual directors once asked me? Can we remember that God is, to paraphrase the philosopher Gabriel Marcel, not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived?
Be open to the mystery of God.
For Reflection
1. What is your favorite image of God?
2. Have you ever experienced God in a surprising place?
3. Are you open to living a mystery?
“I HAVE A DOGMATIC CERTAINTY: GOD IS IN EVERY PERSON’S LIFE.”
Pope Francis is comfortable with gray. In the interview, he speaks out against what he calls a “doctrinal ‘security’ ” and offers a gentle critique of those who “stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists.” Pope Francis asks us to move away from a church that “locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules.” Instead, he invites the church deeper into the world of uncertainty, which is where most of us live anyway.
This is the world in which Jesus of Nazareth walked: the real world, in which people experienced uncertainty and confronted the need to make decisions. It is the milieu of the everyday believer. Jesus entered this world in first-century Palestine, and the church must be comfortable in that same world today.
But there is one thing of which Pope Francis is sure: “I have a dogmatic certainty: God is in every person’s life. God is in everyone’s life. Even if the life of a person has been a disaster, even if it is destroyed by vices, drugs, or anything else—God is in this person’s life. You can, you must try to seek God in every human life.” For me, this was the most moving part of the lengthy interview.
The most common summary of Ignatian spirituality is the phrase “finding God in all things.” Pope Francis reminds us that this means encountering God in all people. It makes sense, but it is a great challenge. It may be easy to find God in all people when they are people you like—or easier still when they like you—or when people present you with a pleasant exterior. It is easy to find God in a loving spouse, a gentle parent, a helpful neighbor, or a devoted child.
But what happens when the person is not so loving? Francis answers: God is in every person, no matter how difficult it may seem to find God there. I ask you to reread that beautiful quote: “Even if a life of a person has been a disaster, even if it has been destroyed by vices, drugs, or anything else—God is in this person’s life. You can, you must try to seek God in every human life.”
Because God is waiting for you there.
For Reflection
1. In whom do you encounter God most easily?
2. In whom is encountering God difficult?
3. Can you seek God in a person whose life seems to be a “disaster”?
“PRAYER FOR ME IS ALWAYS A PRAYER FULL OF MEMORY, OF RECOLLECTION.”
Memory is an underappreciated part of the spiritual life. And rarely is it highlighted so much as it is in A Big Heart Open to God.
Many things can happen during private prayer—when you close your eyes and open yourself to God. Whether meditating on Scripture, praying during a Mass, or walking around in nature (not with your eyes closed!), you may experience all sorts of interior movements.
Emotions are common; you might feel sadness or joy while reading a certain Scripture passage. Desires are also common experiences in prayer; you could feel a longing to lead a holier life while listening to a sermon or homily. Insights may arise—something may suddenly seem clear, a solution to a vexing problem may dawn on you. Also, more general feelings, such as peace, or calm, or contentment, may also arise.
In each of these experiences, God is speaking with you.
But memories are a particularly underappreciated fruit of prayer. Sometimes when we pray we may be reminded of a warm memory, from, say, childhood. This may be a way that God can console you during a difficult time: when you feel alone or abandoned, God might raise up a memory as if to say, “Remember that I was with you then. And I am with you now.” Or when you feel lonely, you might be reminded of a time with a close friend, and think, “I forgot about her friendship,” and feel buoyed up.
A few months ago, I was praying about my Jesuit vocation. Suddenly, I was reminded of a moment from childhood that was suffused with joy. And I could almost feel the same joy as I prayed. I connected it instantly to my Jesuit vocation, and I seemed to see, in an instant, how much joy my Jesuit vocation had brought me. All this from a simple memory in prayer.
Memories that are not so pleasant can also arise—painful memories of loss or frustration or death. God may want to bring those up in prayer to allow you to look at them honestly, to speak about them with someone, or simply to heal them.
As the pope reminds us, when something comes up in prayer from your memory, pay attention. And ask yourself: What might God want to say to me here?
For Reflection
1. Think of a consoling time in your life when God felt especially present.
2. Rest in that moment.
3. Now thank God for that moment.
As Pope Francis said, God is to be found in every person. This means that God dwells within you, desires a relationship with you—and awaits you in prayer. May your meditation on the pope’s words bring you closer to God.
James Martin, SJ, is a Jesuit priest, editor at large at America, and author of several books, including Jesus: A Pilgrimage and The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything.