As Saint Francis drew near his death he dictated a Testament, his final instruction to the brothers he was about to leave. He opens by recommending three basic elements of his own conversion:

“And the Lord Himself led me among the lepers and I showed mercy to them…And after the Lord gave me brothers, no one showed me
what I had to do, but the Most High Himself revealed to me that I should live according to the pattern of the Gospel.”

Saint Francis identifies three fundamental elements that grounded him in his ongoing conversion: mercy, brotherhood, and the Gospel. Mercy softened and freed his heart to embrace universal fraternity with all his brothers and sisters. Therein do they live the Gospel life of Our Lord Jesus Christ. These same three elements characterized Pope Francis’s tenure as Bishop of Rome.

Mercy: At the very beginning of his Petrine ministry, Pope Francis remembered Pope John XXIII’s opening words at the Second Vatican Council: “the medicine of mercy is needed rather than the arms of severity.” Thus, Pope Francis immediately called for an Extraordinary Holy Year of Mercy. He declared mercy was the heartbeat of the Gospel and that we must first “open our eyes and see the misery of the world.” When we break down the barriers of our own merciless indifference to the suffering of others, their cry becomes our own.

Gospel: The Joy of the Gospel

From that proclamation of a Holy Year of Mercy in 2013, he immediately offered the first of the three pillars of his official teaching as pope, his Apostolic Exhortation: The Joy of the Gospel.

This Exhortation calls us “to live the good life of the Gospel.” Gospel life is a life of mission. All are baptized into the mission Christ received from His Father, to proclaim the Kingdom of God. Gospel mission sends us forth, beyond ourselves, out into the world. He explains Gospel is a two-fold mission: to protect the fragile world in which we live, and to protect all its peoples. Pope Francis appeals to Saint Francis: “… like Saint Francis of Assisi, all of us, as Christians, are called to watch over and protect the fragile world in which we live, and all its peoples.”

Fraternity: Laudato Si’ and Fratelli tutti

Saint Francis had many brothers and sisters. First, there were those with whom he shared the same Creator, and then there were also those with whom he shared in the same image of God.

Laudato Si’ (Praise Be You My Lord), released in 2015, this encyclical addresses the first Gospel mission: to protect the fragile world in which we live. The message of this encyclical focuses on the Canticle of Creatures composed by an ill and dying Saint Francis: “Praised be You, my Lord, with all Your creatures.”
Pope Francis pleads that we listen to the cry of the earth, our shared common home. He sets the tone with his first reference to Saint Francis of Assisi: Saint Francis of Assisi reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us.

Fratelli tutti (Brothers and Sisters All), written in 2020, this encyclical addresses the second aspect of Gospel mission: to watch over and protect the peoples of the earth. Pope Francis even signed this encyclical at the tomb of Saint Francis in Assisi, prompting our First Order Ministers General to remind us we are to take this letter seriously and “appreciate it as coming from Saint Francis through Pope Francis.”

The significance of the Good Samaritan is clear: love does not care if a brother or sister in need comes from one place or another. In this sense, he writes fraternity must be local to keep us grounded, but also global, to avoid narrowness. He adds: “Greater fraternity is acquired when we uphold high principles and think of the long-term common good,” that is, not simply think of our own immediate personal or national interests and needs as holding the first place.

The Twins: Now they both rest in simple wooden coffins, both identified by one word: Franciscus. Though they lived over eight centuries apart from one another and in radically different times, these holy men shared the same spirit and joy of the Gospel of our Lord, Jesus Christ.