With Gratitude for Pope Francis

Like so many, our first encounter with Pope Francis was that March day in 2013 when he stepped out onto the balcony at St. Peter’s. And we’ll never forget his first homily, which drew so richly from the life of the Holy Family. At that time, we had five children 10 and under, and we were about a year away from launching Trinity House Café + Market as part of our nonprofit ministry.  

As we discerned amid the many unknowns of launching a nonprofit café with a mission to bring “a taste of heaven” to the heart of our local community, it seemed that suddenly everything Pope Francis was saying had immediate application to us:

• Encounter
• Evangelization
• Accompaniment
• “Missionary Option”
• Living in a “Trinitarian Key”

The years passed. The café ministry took root, and then together we discerned God leading us to help families give their children the gift of faith. In 2019, we began working full-time together, and once again, the Lord met us. Just three years later, we boarded a plane to participate in the 10^th World Meeting of Families, a special week our family spent with Pope Francis, a time we will always cherish.  

As we carry his memory forward in gratitude, here are just a few of his words about marriage and family that blessed us:

• Go on Mission. “Each of your families has a mission to carry out in our world, a testimony to give,” Pope Francis said at the World Meeting of Families. “Start from where you are,” he said, “and, from there, try to journey together: together as couples, together in your families, together with other families, together with the Church.” Each of these four “togethers” is so vital!

• Live Each Day in a “Trinitarian Key.” “For Christians, believing in one God who is Trinitarian communion suggests that the Trinity has left its mark on all creation. Saint Bonaventure… teaches us that each creature bears in itself a specifically Trinitarian structure, so real that it could be readily contemplated if only the human gaze were not so partial, dark and fragile. In this way, he points out to us the challenge of trying to read reality in a Trinitarian key” (Laudato Si’, 239).

• Embrace Your Freedom to Love and Serve. Pope Francis said to married couples, “You made, with the help of Christ’s grace, a courageous decision: not to use freedom for yourselves, but to love the persons that God has put at your side. Instead of living like little islands, you became ‘slaves of one another’. That is how freedom is exercised in the family.”

• Protect Your Family. “Let us not allow the family to be poisoned by the toxins of selfishness, individualism, today’s culture of indifference and culture of waste, and as a result lose its very DNA…”

• Be Courageous. “By accepting the call to marriage and family, you too have left the ‘nest’ and set out on a trip, without knowing beforehand where exactly it would lead, and what new situations, unexpected events and surprises, some painful, would eventually lie in store for you. That is what it means to journey with the Lord.”

• Persevere with Love. “Betting on family love is courageous… In the moments of difficulty and crisis – every family has them – please do not take the easy way… Your husband, your wife, has that spark of love that you felt in the beginning: release it from within and rediscover love. This will help in moments of crisis.”

• Keep Looking Forward. “When Jesus calls, also in the case of marriage and family life, he asks us to keep looking ahead, and he always precedes us on the way. He always precedes us in love and service. And those who follow him will not be disappointed!”

Jesus “always precedes us on the way.” Amen. Today we give thanks for Padre Jorge Mario Bergoglio (1936-2025), Christ’s vicar who accompanied us these past 12 years—pointing us toward our Risen Savior, who precedes us in love and service.