“An insult is a weapon in our hands,” Francis cautions.
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When he was flying back from Macedonia this week, Pope Francis said one experience in particular touched him and gave him a lot of consolation.
On May 6 he had a meeting with poor people of Macedonia who are cared for by the Missionaries of Charity, the order of nuns founded by Mother Teresa.
“There were so many poor people, but to see the meekness of those sisters: They were caring for the poor without paternalism, but as children,” he said.
The Holy Father praised their meekness and tenderness and their “ability to caress the poor.”
It struck him as a stark contrast to what he stopped short of calling “a culture of insult.”
Today, we are used to insulting each other. One politician insults the other, one neighbor insults the other, even in families they insult each other. I cannot say that it is a culture of insult, but the insult is a weapon in our hands.
He lamented that it even gets to the point of the sins of slander or defamation.
The example of Mother Teresa’s sisters offered a striking contrast. They “care for every person as Jesus,” Francis said. He recalled how the superior introduced him to one of the youth, saying, “This is a good boy.”
She caressed him and she said it with the tenderness of a mom, and she enabled me to feel how the Church is a mother. That is one of the most beautiful things — to feel the maternity of the Church. Today I felt it there.
