Cardinal Dolan recalls, in “Praying in Rome”, what happened later that evening after the Pope’s first address. “After his appearance on the balcony, we were all to return to the Domus Sanctae Marthae for dinner. We piled into one of several buses waiting for us cardinals, while the new Holy Father had a sedan, with proper security escort, ready to chauffeur him back to the Domus. When I got off the bus, my brother cardinals and I waited for the Holy Father to arrive. And when the last bus pulled up, guess who got off? Pope Francis! I guess he told his driver, ‘That’s OK. I’ll just go with the boys, as I have been doing.’” The cardinals would see Pope Francis soon at dinner. Cardinal Dolan recalls, “That night we had, as you might imagine, a rather festive supper. At its conclusion, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Secretary of State, toasted the new Holy Father. Pope Francis stood to reply. His toast to the cardinals who had just elected him as Successor of St. Peter? ‘May God forgive you for what you’ve done!’ which brought the house down.”
Pope Francis later retired to Room 207 that night at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, just as he had done during the rest of the conclave. Several days later, he was still living at that room which had been assigned to him during the conclave. Then on March 26, Father Lombardi made the announcement that Room 201 in the Domus would be Pope Francis' new home instead of the large papal apartment. The Holy Father’s decision to remain there was the result of Jesuit-inspired discernment and communal living, and his usual theme of closeness to the people.
Pope Francis told Father Spadaro, referring to the communal life of the Jesuits, “I was always looking for a community. I did not see myself as a priest on my own. I need a community. And you can tell this by the fact that I am here in Santa Marta. At the time of the conclave I lived in Room 207. This room where we are now was a guest room. I chose to live here, in Room 201, because when I took possession of the papal apartment, inside myself I distinctly heard a ‘no.’ The papal apartment in the Apostolic Palace is not luxurious. It is old, tastefully decorated and large, but not luxurious. But in the end it is like an inverted funnel. It is big and spacious, but the entrance is really tight. People can come only in dribs and drabs, and I cannot live without people. I need to live my life with others.”
The Domus Sanctae Marthae (St. Martha’s House) was built in 1996 by Pope John Paul II to house the cardinals gathering for a conclave to elect the pope. When there is no conclave, the simple modern high-rise complex is used as a guesthouse for those coming on church business to the Vatican. Father Spadaro describes Pope Francis’ room that he was invited to for the interview, “The setting is simple, austere. The workspace occupied by the desk is small. I am impressed not only by the simplicity of the furniture, but also by the objects in the room. There are only a few. These include an icon of St. Francis, a statue of Our Lady of Luján, patron saint of Argentina, a crucifix and a statue of St. Joseph sleeping, very similar to the one which I had seen in his office at the Colegio Máximo de San Miguel, where he was rector and also provincial superior.”
It is in this room that Pope Francis rises each day at 4:45 a.m. According to Andrea Tornielli, in the Vatican Insider, “The first few hours of Francis' day are dedicated to prayer and meditation on the Readings which the Pope comments on, in the brief homilies he gives in his morning masses in the chapel of the place he likes to call the ‘boarding school’, commonly known as St. Martha’s House: a simple and modern building decorated with light-coloured marble and stained glass. The Bishop of Rome sits in the pews at the back of the chapel to pray. These spontaneous but not completely improvised morning preachings are one of the most important changes of the new pontificate.... The Pope is assisted by cardinals, bishops or visiting priests and the masses are attended mostly by Vatican staff – from IOR staff to rubbish collectors – and their families. Francis greets all of them one by one and then has breakfast in the St. Martha’s House ‘common room.’”
Prayer is essential for Pope Francis. He said in Ch. 4 of Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio, “In my view, prayer should be an experience of giving way, of surrendering, where our entire being enters the presence of God. It is where a dialogue happens, the listening, the transformation. Look to God, but above all feel looked at by God.” The Rosary and Adoration before the Blessed Sacrament remain some of Pope Francis’ favorite forms of prayer, besides, of course, celebrating the Mass.
Cardinal Bergoglio was accustomed to wearing old and worn shoes, but just before he went to Rome, friends gave him a pair of new black shoes to make sure he would be suitably dressed for the conclave. Cardinal Bergoglio, after all, was the type that even after being made a cardinal, refused to order new robes, choosing instead to have alterations done on the ones worn by his predecessor. So when he was raised to the papacy, Matthew Bunson tells us in Ch. 8 of Pope Francis, that Pope Francis refused the papal red shoes, preferring the black ones his friends from Argentina had given him. He also refused to wear the jeweled gold cross typically worn by the pope, choosing to keep the metal pectoral cross he had worn as bishop and was designed after the image of Jesus from his favorite painting; White Crucifixion by Marc Chagall. In keeping with his simplicity, he even told his driver on the morning of March 14, to stop by the hotel where he had stayed prior to the conclave so he could personally pay his hotel bill. He also personally made a phone call to Argentina to cancel his Buenos Aires newspaper subscription; he would no longer need it.
Pope Francis’ first homily as pope was at the widely anticipated Missa Pro Ecclesia (Mass for the Church) in the Sistene Chapel. While this homily is typically a ponderous one, Pope Francis, keeping in mind that the cardinals were not the only ones present and that the flock of the Church throughout the world were also listening, kept his tone and style very simple and pastoral as he would do with all his papal homilies. He focused on a simple theme from the readings, in this case ‘movement’, which relates to life. It was his practice to number a short list of aspects on that theme, reviewing the points again at the end.
He also refrained from using theological terminology that may not be understood by the people. Instead, he has become known for using his own sayings and freshly coined metaphors. Andrea Tornielli remarks, in “Vatican Insider”, on the Pope’s morning homilies, “Every morning Francis comes up with new and effective illustrations to his messages, such as the ‘babysitter’ church, the concept of ‘God spray’, confession not being like a ‘dry cleaner’s’, ‘sitting room Christians’, ‘museum-piece Christians’ and ‘starch-pressed Christians’. Then there are his references to ‘prayers of courtesy’, the ‘balm of memory’, ‘adolescent progressivism’ and ‘pastoral customs’ which instead of fostering people’s faith, complicate it. But the most striking thing about Francis is the simplicity of his words. Particularly those about tenderness and forgiveness: ‘The message of Jesus is mercy. For me, I say this humbly, it is the Lord’s most powerful message.’ This message has encouraged people across the world to return to the Church and to confession after years of estrangement.”
With Holy Week soon approaching, the new Holy Father made special arrangements for Holy Thursday Mass. While typically the papal Holy Thursday Mass and its rite of foot-washing are held at the Basilica of St. John Lateran, the cathedral of Rome, Pope Francis chose to emphasize the Church’s preferential option for the poor by celebrating it instead at the Casal del Marmo youth prison just outside Rome, like he had done previously as a cardinal in Buenos Aires. At his Last Supper, Jesus had washed the feet of his disciples, saying to them, “Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:12-14).
Conveying the message that Jesus and his Church have come to serve all people and especially the poor, Pope Francis washed and kissed the feet of twelve young people who were incarcerated. He did so without distinction of who they were, and chose to also include two young women and two Muslims in the rite of foot-washing. News headlines around the world broadcast the Pope’s actions since women and non-Christians had never been included before in a Holy Thursday rite of foot-washing by a pope. Father Lombardi had to explain that the Holy Father is not strictly bound by the liturgical norm that includes only men in the rite. The media had only good things to say about this new pope, forgetting, at least for a bit, their litany of criticisms of the Catholic Church.