When the news came of Pope Francis’ passing, it did not feel like the closing of a chapter. It was the soft drawing in of breath at the end of a long and generous prayer. Around the world, his death has been marked by tributes, reflections, personal stories and shared memories.
Among the Sisters of Our Lady of Apostles (OLA), this moment has prompted quiet reflection. What remains with us is the sense of someone who carried his vocation with deep attentiveness. Someone who moved gently through the world, listening closely, walking steadily, and remaining present to the details of people’s lives; their joys, their worries, the quiet daily realities often overlooked.
Pope Francis led without thunder or force, he led by walking – a steady, open-hearted journeying with those who lived on the margins. His papacy stood apart because – it was human. Radically so.
Rooted in the simplicity of his Jesuit formation, he never saw the Church as something to defend. It was always about service. As a Religious, he saw the world without the clerical lens of rank and rigidity. He interpreted life through the spiritual language of discernment, humility, and community.
His leadership stayed grounded in something more personal than position. It was shaped by a spirituality many of us recognised instinctively. He approached life through the rhythms of Religious life: community, daily prayer, discernment, and a practice of listening for what the Spirit might be asking—both in the silence of retreat and in the noise of the world.
His way of being reminded many of us that leadership in the Church does not have to come from hierarchy or formality. It can emerge from presence. Real, embodied, attentive presence.
This mattered. It still does.
For those who live the missionary vocation, who have walked dusty roads, sat beside the wounded, listened knowing that listening is what was most needed, without stumbling attempts to fix, Pope Francis’ leadership felt familiar. Comforting. Intimate. He did not offer us something new so much as he affirmed the foundational truth of our faith. The Gospel is alive. It lives where compassion takes root.
Mission begins in tenderness rather than strength.
The Path of Synodality
Perhaps nowhere was this clearer than in his passionate commitment to synodality. From the beginning, Pope Francis called for a Church that listens, a Church that does not speak from above, but walks side by side. He invited all people – not just clergy, not just the loudest or the most certain – to take part in shaping the life of the Church.
Sr Mary T. Barron, our Congregational Leader, has been deeply engaged in this Synodal journey. As President of the International Union of Superiors General (UISG) and now as a member of the Dicastery for Evangelisation, Sr Mary brought to the process the voice of women religious, those who serve in quiet places, in forgotten corners, where Church becomes flesh.
She experienced the quiet integrity of Pope Francis in her encounters with him during the Synodal process and also in her role in the Dicastery. Encounters shaped more by shared understanding and mutual respect than protocol.
In her own words, reflecting on the Synod, she said: “It was a real space of listening, of paying attention, of openness… That experience of deep communion, I believe, is what Pope Francis is trying to lead us towards.”
Sr Mary has often spoken of his capacity to listen with full attention, receiving what was shared without rushing to respond. There was a quiet depth to their conversations.
He never rushed to provide answers. Instead, he made space for the questions to breathe. He reminded the Church through his words and his manner that discernment is a way of living.
It requires patience, humility, and the willingness to be shaped by encounter.
This posture of deep listening became the heart of the Synod. A space shaped by the commitment to walk together.
When Sr Mary speaks of Pope Francis it is with deep affection. A fondness that lingers when someone’s presence touches something inward and enduring.
She recalls his warmth, and the natural way he embodied a spirituality familiar to anyone who seeks to live their faith through contemplation, discernment, and attentive presence.
These are not abstract ideals. They speak directly to the heart of our missionary life: listening with reverence, collaborating across cultures, and living out our shared baptismal call in ways that are true to the Gospel and open to the movement of the Spirit.
The Shape of His Presence
Pope Francis returned again and again to the theme of mercy, presenting it as the very centre of the Gospel. A force that restores, heals, and dignifies. His pontificate reminded us that mercy is not soft. It is strong. It is the courage to welcome, to forgive, to begin again. It is the courage to recognise the wounds of the world, and not to look away.
His visits to prisons, his conversations with refugees, his public gestures of compassion; these revealed something essential about how he understood the Gospel. He didn’t distance himself from the world’s wounds. He drew near to them. And in doing so, he reminded many who serve quietly and consistently that their presence matters.
He was unafraid to name violence, exclusion, and injustice, even within the structures of the Church itself. His calls for accountability in the face of abuse, his recognition of the struggles of women, and his persistent advocacy for the dignity of migrants and the poor were acts of discipleship rather than diplomacy.
In OLA communities around the world, this way of being is deeply felt. Our work happens quietly, in moments that are not often named or seen: standing with survivors of violence, advocating for girls forced into early marriage, challenging the structures that devalue human life. Our Sisters have accompanied women on the margins, tended the sick, worked in healthcare, and stood alongside those living with HIV, most often in places where hope remains fragile. These moments carry meaning. They hold space for the Gospel to quietly stir, settle and be lived.
Pope Francis gave language to these hidden spaces. His words gave courage to those who live their faith through silence and smallness. In him, we found encouragement – and something deeper. We found accompaniment.
He walked with us in the vision he set forth. In his reflections on mercy, in his insistence that the Church is a field hospital, in his embrace of those the world overlooks, he affirmed that holiness does not draw attention to itself. It draws near.
The Rhythm of Small Acts
With the publication of Laudato Si’, Pope Francis gave voice to a conviction that creation is not simply to be used and discarded, but is to be cherished and protected in relationship. He reminded the Church, and the world, that the cry of the earth is inseparable from the cry of the poor. He drew attention to the interdependence of all life. Climate change, he insisted, is not only a technical issue, but one that calls for urgent moral and spiritual response.
These insights found fertile ground in many of the places where OLA Sisters live and work, where the realities of climate change and poverty are inseparably bound. His words gave new energy to our ecological advocacy, especially among younger generations. Through intergenerational initiatives, educational outreach, and grassroots commitment, we have sought to carry forward that message – that care is action, and justice is love made public.
In a world marked by exhaustion and fear, Pope Francis offered a different script: one of hope, interdependence, and shared responsibility.
There was nothing performative about the way he led. He was not interested in making history. He was interested in making space. Space for dialogue, for change, for people who have been pushed to the edges. He wept openly. He stumbled. He laughed. He made mistakes and admitted them. And in doing so, he reminded us that holiness is not perfection. It is presence.
There was a tenderness in him that asked nothing for itself. It lived in his gestures – embracing the disfigured, washing the feet of prisoners, meeting with the forgotten – in the silences he honoured, in the tears he didn’t hide. For those whose lives are shaped by accompaniment, often hidden, always relational, this tenderness felt like recognition. They were sacraments of presence. The Gospel, embodied.
As women religious we often find ourselves in corners that attract little notice. Not by strategy, but by call. In work that is slow and sometimes heavy. In connections forged over time and undone in an instant. Pope Francis never told us what to do. He didn’t need to. His way of being reminded us that the quiet, faithful path is still the path. That fidelity to mission is not measured in outcomes, but in how deeply we love those whom the world forgets. He taught us to persist in the small acts and to believe again in the value of presence.
What Remains With Us
The holiness of his life will not be measured by statues or feast days, but by how faithfully we carry forward the work he began.
To walk with Francis was always to walk toward others. Toward the poor. Toward dialogue. Toward the questions that disturb. Toward the margins, which are, in truth, the centre.
His life gave us permission to be both brave and kind. To lead with mercy. To resist cynicism. To find God beyond the liturgy; in the shared meal, the long silence, the honest question, the small act of courage.
To trust the slow work of God.
We remain grateful. For his courage, his questions, his quiet revolutions. And we pray, in our own small ways, to honour that legacy, not only in memory, but in movement.
It is a path. And we continue walking.