蜜芽传媒

鈥淭hey took about a litre and a half of water out of one lung, and I was hanging between life and death.鈥�

Good morning.

The opening words are those of Pope Francis looking back to 1957. The 21-year-old Jorge Bergoglio, then at the beginning of his priestly training, was in a hospital bed in Buenos Aires, struggling to breathe.

Francis remembered: 鈥淔or months I didn鈥檛 know who I was, if I would live or die. Even the doctors didn鈥檛 know. I remember hugging my mother one day and asking her if I was about to die.鈥�

He recalled how the nun who nursed him, saved his life, doubling the dose of antibiotics that the doctor had prescribed. Francis reflected, 鈥渟he knew better than the doctor and she had the courage to put that experience to work.鈥�

For Francis, those early insights transformed his world view. He knew death would eventually take him, but until then life was precious and not to be wasted.

His pilgrim road was not straightforward. He was gifted, but he found it made him arrogant; he was decisive, but he learned it made him stubborn; he was intelligent, but he saw it stopped him listening.

Through all these things, Francis grew in humility and wisdom 鈥� about the complexities within his own soul, about the beauty and brokenness of creation, and about the gentle mysterious presence of God in our world.

Recently he said, 鈥淕od is the light that illuminates the darkness, even if it does not dissolve it; and a spark of divine light is within each of us.鈥�

Eternal rest grant unto Pope Francis, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in Peace. Amen.

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