Before meeting up with his friends at the train station to go and celebrate Student Day on September 21, 1953, Jorge decided to pay a visit to his parish, San José de Flores. Student Day marks the start of spring in the Southern Hemisphere. At church, Jorge was moved and inspired by a priest visiting that day and decided to ask the priest to hear his confession. The overwhelming experience of God’s mercy in receiving the sacrament awakened him to his vocation, that God was calling him to the priesthood in the religious life. “Something strange happened to me in that confession. I don’t know what it was, but it changed my life. I think it surprised me, caught me with the guard down,” Jorge recalls in Ch. 4 of Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio. In that moment, at the age of seventeen, he knew his vocation and was so moved that he stayed in the church praying instead of meeting his friends at the train station to celebrate Student Day.
His experience of God’s calling, through the mercy of Confession, became the inspiration for the motto he chose for himself when he was first appointed auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires and has remained the same during his papacy: “miserando atque eligendo”. These Latin words are taken from a homily on Saint Mathew by the Venerable Bede and are translated as “seeing through the eyes of mercy, he chose him” (as translated in Ch. 4 of John Allen’s Ten Things Pope Francis Wants You to Know). The complete sentence from the Venerable Bede reads like this: “Jesus, therefore, saw the publican, and because he saw by having mercy and by choosing, He said to him, ‘Follow me’” (as translated by Father Zuhlsdorf on ‘Father Z’s Blog’). The story of Saint Mathew reveals that he had one of the most hated and least ethical professions of his day in 1st century Palestine; he was a tax collector for the Roman occupiers. Yet, Christ showed him merciful love, called him, changed his life, and made him an Apostle.
In a 2013 interview with Father Antonio Spadaro, Pope Francis refers to Caravaggio’s painting the Calling of Saint Matthew at the Church of St. Louis in Rome, “It is the gesture of Matthew that strikes me: he holds on to his money as if to say, ‘No, not me! No, this money is mine.’ Here, this is me, a sinner on whom the Lord has turned his gaze” (as translated in America magazine).
Four years would pass before Jorge tells anyone about his vocational discernment. Meanwhile, he continued his studies and work in food chemistry, but he spent more time alone in silent prayer. He eventually graduated from the University of Buenos Aires. At the age of twenty-one, Jorge felt the time was right to make a serious move toward realizing his vocation. Jorge first told his father about his decision to enter seminary. His father was pleased with his choice, but his mother had a different reaction. When he told his mother, she was hesitant and did not accept his decision for many years. His mother never visited him in seminary; even through they visited together when he would come home on vacation. Jorge, however, recalls his mother kneeling and asking for his blessing on his ordination day. Jorge kept close to his heart the way his Grandma Rosa was unconditionally supportive of him during his discernment. She was pleased that he was pursuing the priesthood, but also said she would support and welcome him back if he decided it wasn’t for him.
Jorge knew that he wanted to join a religious order rather than become a diocesan priest, and he ultimately decided upon the Jesuits, the Society of Jesus. The Society of Jesus, sometimes nicknamed the ‘Marines of God,’ was founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola in 1534 in Paris and has been at the front lines of evangelization. The Jesuits began their ministry in the land that became known as Argentina in 1586, continuing for centuries to found missions, colleges, schools, parishes, and serving the poor throughout the region. Pope Francis recalls in his 2013 interview with Father Spadaro, S.J., “Three things in particular struck me about the Society: the missionary spirit, community and discipline. And this is strange, because I am a really, really undisciplined person. But their discipline, the way they manage their time—these things struck me so much.” He continues, “And then a thing that is really important for me: community. I was always looking for a community. I did not see myself as a priest on my own. I need a community.”
Jorge’s ordination was subject to a process of discernment, and interest in the opposite sex played its role as well. Before his more serious commitment to the priesthood, he had a crush on a girl his age when he was twelve years old. He said he wanted to marry her, but her parents disapproved. When he was in seminary, Jorge met a very beautiful girl at his uncle’s wedding and spent a week struggling on which way he would go. In fact, he recalls that he could not pray that whole week because of his struggle. Still, he remained in seminary and ultimately discerned together with his superiors that his calling to the priesthood was genuine.
The Jesuits have a long and disciplined formation process involving prayer, study, and ministry. For his first three years, Jorge was sent to the archdiocesan seminary, Inmaculada Concepción, in Buenos Aires. After entering the novitiate in 1958, he was sent to Santiago, Chile, to pursue studies in the humanities. In 1960, he took his first vows in the Society of Jesus. In that same year, he earned a licentiate in philosophy, an advanced degree granted by the Church, from the Colegio Máximo San José in San Miguel, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina.
In 1964, Jorge taught literature and psychology at the Colegio de la Inmaculada, a Jesuit secondary school in Santa Fe, Argentina. Two years later, in 1966, he taught at the Colegio del Salvador secondary school in Buenos Aires. He liked being a teacher and loved his students. Jorge reflects in Ch. 5 of Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio, “I love them very much. They never were, nor are they now, indifferent to me, and I never forgot them. I want to thank them for all the good they did me, particularly for the way they taught me how to be more a brother than a father.” In one of his literature classes, he had the students try their hand at writing short stories. The students loved the project and the stories were good enough that he was able to have them published together in a book. Jorge’s approach to teaching was similar to his approach to everything else; he added a personal touch. He shares, “If you try to educate using only theoretical principles, without remembering that the most important thing is the person in front of you, then you fall into a kind of fundamentalism... they can’t absorb lessons that aren’t accompanied by a life’s testimony and a degree of closeness....” During his days as a teacher, Jorge also taught classes in theology, philosophy, and the humanities.
Jorge Bergoglio, was finally ordained as a priest on December 13, 1969, by Archbishop Ramón José Castellano. In 1972, he became a novice master. Following his tertianship period of formation in Alcalá, Spain, he took his final vows in the Society of Jesus on April 22, 1973. Almost immediately after, he was elected provincial of the order in Argentina and Uruguay, in July 31, 1973, serving until 1979. His tenure as provincial coincided with the Dirty War in Argentina between the military dictatorship and guerrilla fighters. Both groups murdered thousands of their perceived opponents. Meanwhile, a growing number of Jesuits wanted to get involved in the conflict. To say the least, Jorge Bergoglio’s job would not be easy.