Given on 21 April 2025 at Westminster Cathedral for the Requiem Mass offered for the respose of the soul of Pope Francis.
This is a day of sadness as people everywhere learn of the death of His Holiness Pope Francis.
Here many tributes are being paid to him, including one from our King Charles and Queen Camilla. They speak of their ‘heavy hearts’ and pay tribute to his compassion and ‘his tireless commitment to the common causes of all people of faith.’
Today a voice has fallen silent, a voice heard in every corner of the world: a voice of warm encouragement and sharp challenge, expressing both love of God and a love of our shared humanity. It is silent for a more authoritative voice has spoken: that of his heavenly Father, calling him home, to be with his Lord and Master forever.
Pope Francis had a single focus in life: to strive to do the will of God, as it was given to him in the Catholic Church, recognising the summons to holiness that touches every human heart.
There are two words which, for me, are central to the response of Pope Francis to the vocation he received. They are mercy and hope.
His first proclamation on his election was to announce the mercy of God. His motto as a bishop and Pope had the same focus. It was imprinted on his soul when as a young man he happened to enter a church and go to confession. There he encountered both the mercy of God and his calling. Thus he chose as his motto: ‘Miserando atque eligendo’ - having mercy he (God) chose him - words actually taken from the writings of our own St Bede.
This loving trust in the mercy of God for every person, a mercy never withdrawn, led him to teach us more about accompanying one another on our pilgrim way. He wanted the Church to be characterised by this same mercy, suspending ready condemnation in favour of walking, step by step, with each other, searching out together the discernment that the next step to be taken was indeed a step nearer to the will of God and the fulfilment of his plan, his commandments, for us. He knew that maturity is achieved mostly through our struggle with our weaknesses and that we do not enter more deeply into the mystery of God by the highway of our own achievements. He taught that our pathway has to be that of loving mercy, received and given, because the mercy of God outweighs the burden of our faults.
Once asked, ‘Who is Pope Francis?’ he instantly replied: ‘A sinner.’ His very last pastoral action, just a few days ago, was to visit the Regina Coeli prison in Rome, greeting the inmates and declaring that, but for the grace of God, he could have been in their place.
And from this deep trust in the mercy of God sprang his second most powerful characteristic: hope!
He declared this year to be a Jubilee Year during which we are to grasp again the wonder of the hope that we are given. Pilgrims into Hope is what he called us to be!
This hope is not simply an optimism that all will work out well in the end. Indeed, his voice so often called us to renewed effort to protect those who were without hope, who could see no way forward. He was sharply critical of all who ignored the well-being of so many and held them of no significance in their calculations and actions.
Constantly he spoke for those on the margins of society, challenging us with words such as: ‘If you want to know how successful your economy is, go and speak with an unemployed person.’ And of those imprisoned in slavery and suffering other terrible forms of abuse, he said: ‘These are gaping wounds in the flesh of humanity, wounds in the flesh of Christ himself.’ He was filled with compassion, mercy, righteous indignation and irrepressible hope.
The fullness of this hope in the Lord is, of course, his promise of heaven. This is key to the Christian virtue of hope: that through God’s mercy, we will attain the fullness of life and glory for which we have been created. Today we pray that Pope Francis is now journeying into this fullness. May he be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven, promised to the good thief on Calvary and celebrated so fully by the Church yesterday.
Virtually the last words spoken in public by Pope Francis were these: ‘A happy Easter’. Our prayer is that the Lord will now welcome this faithful servant home, to a happiness that lasts, not for a season, but for all eternity. Even as we mourn our loss, may this be our consolation and our sure hope.
May Pope Francis, beloved of so many, rest in peace.
Amen.
✠ Cardinal Vincent Nichols
Archbishop of Westminster