Prayer for Pope Francis
Lord, source of eternal life and truth,
give to your shepherd, Pope Leo XIV,
a spirit of courage and right judgment,
a spirit of knowledge and love.
By governing with fidelity those entrusted to his care,
may he, as successor to the Apostle Peter and Vicar of Christ,
build your Church into a sacrament of unity,
love and peace for all the world.
Amen.
It was with great sadness that we mourned the passing of our beloved Pope Francis, the 266th successor of St. Peter. To honour his memory and pray for his soul, we held a morning liturgy with our staff and a special homeroom liturgy with our students.
Throughout his papacy, Pope Francis urged us to embrace the marginalised and to trust in God's love and mercy. He consistently emphasised the message of Christ as preached in the Gospels. As educators of our youth, we remember his deep love and concern for our young people. In his exhortation Christus Vivit —"To Young People and to the Entire People of God” he states:
I repeat this to each of you individually: Christ is alive and he loves you with an infinite love. His love for you is unaffected by your failings or your mistakes. He gave his life for you, so in his love for you he does not wait for you to be perfect. Look at his arms outstretched on the cross, and “let yourself be saved over and over again”. Walk with him as with a friend, welcome him into your life and let him share all the joys and hopes, the problems and struggles of this time in your lives. You will see that the path ahead will become clearer and that your difficulties will be much less burdensome, because he will be carrying them with you. So pray daily to the Holy Spirit who “draws you ever more deeply into the heart of Christ, so that you can grow in his love, his life and his power”.
Even in his last hours of his life in the traditional Easter “Urbi Et Orbi (to the city and to the world),” Pope Francis had great hope in humanity and the transforming love that Christ brings to all who encounter him.
“The resurrection of Jesus is indeed the basis of our hope. For in the light of this event, hope is no longer an illusion. Thanks to Christ — crucified and risen from the dead — hope does not disappoint! Spes non confundit! (cf. Rom 5:5). That hope is not an evasion, but a challenge; it does not delude, but empowers us.
All those who put their hope in God place their feeble hands in his strong and mighty hand; they let themselves be raised up and set out on a journey. Together with the risen Jesus, they become pilgrims of hope, witnesses of the victory of love and of the disarmed power of Life.”
Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him. May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen