WASHINGTON — Throughout Pope Francis’ six-day U.S. visit, it was the poor, the vulnerable and the common man and woman — not the elite and powerful — among whom Pope Francis tarried, shook hands and exchanged words.

And the Holy Father told those he embraced that they too are called to be missionaries of mercy in a society that needs them.

Nowhere was this merciful mission to those on America’s social peripheries more strikingly on display than at St. Patrick’s and Catholic Charities in Washington, where the Holy Father met Sept. 24 with more than 500 people — most of whom were homeless persons, unaccompanied minors from Central America, participants in drug-addiction programs and people with developmental disabilities — being assisted by the Church.

“It’s awesome, you know?” Latisha Bussie, a 36-year-old woman who spent most of her life as a homeless alcoholic and drug addict before embarking on the road to recovery, told NPR afterward. “And then again, you get to meet the man who actually has started a change on how people should look towards other people.”

During the Catholic Charities meeting, the Pope encouraged his audience to pray to Jesus in all life situations.

“In prayer, we all learn to say, ‘Father,’ ‘Dad.’ We learn to see one another as brothers and sisters.”

Wesley Faucette, a black Baptist man who helps the hungry and found work and obtained housing assistance for himself through Catholic Charities, told the Register that meeting the Pope and shaking his hand was a “most powerful” experience.

“He’s a calm, soft-spoken man — a peacemaker,” he said.

 

Visiting the Imprisoned

Another defining moment occurred at the Holy Father’s Sept. 27 encounter with prisoners at Philadelphia’s Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, where he emphasized that while they are confined Jesus invites them to share his mission to “cleanse, heal and restore.”

“I am here as a pastor, but, above all, as a brother, to share your situation and to make it my own,” the Pope stressed, before stepping into the crowd to meet individually with more than 150 seated prisoners and with members of their families. The Holy Father shook their hands and blessed one African-American inmate who rose from his chair to embrace him. Before he left, the Pope thanked the inmates for their hard work in crafting a beautiful papal chair for him.

He also spoke directly to immigrants to the U.S. at Independence Mall, calling them to “help to renew society from within” and not to forget their traditions or “the lessons you learned from your elders.” 

In New York City, the Pope went to Our Lady, Queen of the Angels School in East Harlem, where he encouraged students, “Keep smiling, and help bring joy to everyone you meet.”

The delighted children took selfies with the Pope, and the third- and fourth-graders even showed the Holy Father how to use a smart board after his own failed attempts to get it to work.

A visibly emotional Christopher Diaz, 12, shook the Pope’s hand and later told CNN, “I think I will feel like this forever. I got to meet the Pope.”

At the Festival of Families, the Holy Father took notes as several families from around the globe spoke about their own fears and challenges and the lessons they learned in marriage. Clearly moved, the Pope set aside his prepared remarks and delivered a passionate, off-the-cuff speech on the beauty of the family, calling it a “factory of hope.”

“All that is good, all that is true, all that is beautiful leads us to God, because God is good; God is beautiful; God is true,” he proclaimed.

 

Little Gestures

Throughout the journey, the messages that spoke the loudest were the Holy Father’s gestures.

At Catholic Charities in D.C., the Holy Father accepted a letter from 8-year-old Steven Waller, who asked the Holy Father to pray for him and his mom, “for a job and a better life.”

At St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia, he asked to meet a family of seven — Noël Zemborain, Catire Zemborain and their children from Buenos Aires — who traveled 13,000 miles in a VW Kombi to see him at the World Meeting of Families. Laughing, he told them, “You are crazy!” and asked them to pray for him. They joked back and shared “big hugs” with the Pope, as well as took pictures together. Daughter Cala, 12, “clung to his waist and did not leave him” the whole time.

The Holy Father turned to a member of his group and said, “This is very important: a young family who has the courage to go out on a Kombi and live life with joy and to [encounter] other families.”  

The visit was “all very friendly and relaxed, as if he were a lifelong friend,” the family members recounted afterward on their Facebook page.

One of the poignant gestures of the trip was when Pope Francis stopped the motorcade in Philadelphia to bless and kiss the forehead of Michael Keating, a 10-year-old boy with cerebral palsy.

In his parting words to America at his final Mass for the World Meeting of Families, the Holy Father told them that “holiness is always tied to little gestures.”

“Love is shown by little things, by attention to the small daily signs which make our lives always feel like they’re at home.”