Blessing for Jorge Mario Bergoglio

 

God, make him an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let him sow love;
where his church injured people,
may he offer comfort and justice;
where there is extravagance,
may he teach the simplicity
of his leaving the chauffeur for the bus,
where there is despair among the poor,
may he care as he did in Buenos Aires slums;
where there is fear of Vatican exclusivity,
may he be priest from faraway
willing to listen to the world,;
and where there is sadness born
of torture and death in  the Dirty War,
may he become gentle as Francis.

God, grant that this Pope not so much seek
to be defined by the past as open to the future
to be understood through old views,
as to understand women and
your same-gender loving children;
to call others “devil” as to listen to angels.

For it is in his first humble words
asking for our prayers
rather than pronouncing a blessing,
that he is blessed,
it is in knowing that true pardon
is never protecting those who abuse others,
that there is healing,
and it is embracing the humble saint
of begging and bird-sermons
of crèche and courage
that he may guide his faith community
through dying to an Easter life. Amen.