By Carol Glatz, CNS
A few days before he was elected pope in March 2013, then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio told his fellow cardinals, "I have the impression that Jesus was locked up in the Church and is knocking on the door because he wants to come out."
With this brief and simple phrase, the Cardinal of Buenos Aires gave a clear and forceful glimpse of what, according to him, the Church needed at that time: missionary disciples who would bring the joy of the Gospel to the peripheries.
Further on, he stated that the Church becomes sick if she remains closed in, safe, busy being a kind of "hairdresser", fluffing and curling the fleece of her flock, instead of going out, as Christ did, to look for the sheep that are lost. Her phrases used to sound like proverbs: brief reflections full of wisdom.
Before and after becoming a priest, Pope Francis taught high school literature and had a strong background in literary and film-related topics and resources. His mother tongue was Spanish, he grew up with Italian-speaking relatives in Argentina and received Jesuit training, so his vast and eclectic knowledge provided him with elements that he used to combine with a religious message, creating metaphors such as when he warned that the Church cannot be a "nanny" of the faithful, to describe a parish that does not give birth to active evangelizers, but is limited to taking care that the faithful do not stray from the path.
The "armchair Catholics", on the other hand, do not let the Holy Spirit guide their lives. They prefer to stay still, safe, reciting a "cold morality" without letting the Spirit push them out of their homes to bring Jesus to others.
The Pope, who saw Christ as a "true physician of bodies and souls," frequently resorted to metaphors related to medicine.
He dreamed of a church that would be "a field hospital after a battle". There is no point in asking a seriously wounded person if he has high cholesterol or what his blood sugar level is. First you have to heal his wounds.
On another occasion he warned that pride or vanity is like "an osteoporosis of the soul: the bones seem to be fine, but inside they are all ruined".
Another medical problem that the soul can suffer from is "spiritual Alzheimer's," a disease that prevents some people from remembering God's love and mercy for them and, therefore, prevents them from showing mercy to others.
And if people were to have a "spiritual electrocardiogram" - he once asked - would it show a flat line because the heart is hardened, indifferent and insensitive, or would it beat with the impulses and inspirations of the Holy Spirit?
Although many do not recognize it, God is their true father, he said. "First of all, He has given us DNA, that is, He has made us children, He has created us in His image, in His image and likeness, like Himself."
Through many of his linguistic devices, one could sense the Ignatian spirituality that formed him. Just as a Jesuit seeks to use the five senses to encounter and experience God's love, the Pope did not hesitate to employ language that involved sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell.
Therefore, he urged the priests of the world to be "shepherds with the smell of sheep" as a result of being with the people, witnessing their challenges, listening to their dreams and being mediators between God and his people to bring God's grace to them.
Food and drink offered numerous teachings. For example, Catholic elders should share with the young their vision and wisdom, which become "a good wine that tastes better with age."
To convey the destructive atmosphere that a bitter and angry priest can generate in his community, the Pope said that such priests make you think: "This one, in the morning, at breakfast he drinks vinegar; then, at lunch, pickled vegetables; and, finally, at night, a good lemon juice".
Moody, pessimistic Catholics with "vinegar faces" are too focused on themselves rather than on the love, tenderness and forgiveness of Jesus, which ignite and nourish true joy, he said.
Even life in the field offered lessons. On one occasion, he told parishioners to pester their priests like a calf pesters its mother for milk. Always knock "at their door, at their heart, so that they may give them the milk of doctrine, the milk of grace and the milk of guidance" spiritually.
Christians should not be snooty and shallow like some special cookies his Italian grandmother used to make: from a very thin strip of dough, the cookies were puffed and puffed up in a pan with hot oil. They are called "bugies" or "lies," he said, because "they look big, but there's nothing inside, there's nothing real there; there's nothing of substance."
To explain the kind of "terrible anxiety" that results from a life of vanity based on lies and fantasies, the Pope said it's like those people who put on too much makeup and then are afraid it will rain and all the makeup will run off their face.
Pope Francis never shied away from the unpleasant or vulgar, and called unbridled capitalism and money, when they become an idol, the "dung of the devil."
He compared the media's love of the vulgar and the scandalous to the "coprophilia", meaning the fetishistic attraction to excrement, and said that the lives of the corrupt are "varnished rot" because, like whitened sepulchers, they appear beautiful on the outside, but inside they are full of dead bones.
In a meeting with cardinals and the heads of the Vatican offices for the annual Christmas greeting, the Pope explained that the reform of the Roman Curia was much more than a simple facelift to rejuvenate or beautify an aging body. It was a process of profound personal conversion.
Sometimes, he said, reform "is like cleaning the Sphinx of Egypt with a toothbrush."
