We have a Pope!

  The Catholic Church named Jorge Bergoglio as its 266^th Pope this week. His record of service demonstrates a passion for the poor and to live the simple life of a man dedicated to God’s service.

   That impresses me.

   When it is all said and done the pope is a pastor. He just happens to pastor more than a billion people. As a pastor his interests are focused primarily on building the kingdom of God.

   Sometimes pastors forget that become absorbed in the accumulation of creature comforts, wealth and fame. Pastors who wear flashy jewelry, live in luxury mansions, and drive expensive automobiles soon become distant from the passion that drives them to save the people on behalf of the Lord.

   The new Pope has lived a  sober and austere lifestyle. He travels on the underground, the bus, when he traveled to Rome he flew economy class.

    He probably won’t see much of that anymore. He won’t get to ride the bus or fly economy class because he is the Pope, but all of his life is interest has been with the poor and downtrodden.

    At 76 years of age he’s probably not going to change, because his address and title has changed.

    When Jesus began his ministry he announced a life of poverty where even “foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the son of man hath no place to lay his head.”

    In Luke 4:18-19, Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”

    To the extent that he remembers the poor and reaches out to the disenfranchised in the name of our Lord, I welcome the Pope and pray God’s blessings upon him.

The New Pope emerges



http://commoncts.blogspot.com/2013/03/video-pope-francis-elected-cardinal.html